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Understanding trends in C–H bond activation in heterogeneous catalysis

Nature Materials volume 16, pages 225–229 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

While the search for catalysts capable of directly converting methane to higher value commodity chemicals and liquid fuels has been active for over a century, a viable industrial process for selective methane activation has yet to be developed1. Electronic structure calculations are playing an increasingly relevant role in this search, but large-scale materials screening efforts are hindered by computationally expensive transition state barrier calculations. The purpose of the present letter is twofold. First, we show that, for the wide range of catalysts that proceed via a radical intermediate, a unifying framework for predicting C–H activation barriers using a single universal descriptor can be established. Second, we combine this scaling approach with a thermodynamic analysis of active site formation to provide a map of methane activation rates. Our model successfully rationalizes the available empirical data and lays the foundation for future catalyst design strategies that transcend different catalyst classes.

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Figure 1: Universal scaling relationship for methane C–H bond activation that proceeds via a radical-like TS.
Figure 2: TS geometries for various active site motifs.
Figure 3: C–H bond activation for different reactants.
Figure 4: Volcano plots for methane activation.
Figure 5: Identifying promising catalysts for methane activation using scaling.

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Acknowledgements

Support from the US Department of Energy Office of Basic Energy Science to the SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis is gratefully acknowledged. The research of A.A.L. was conducted with Government support under and awarded by DoD, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship, 32 CFR 168a. A.R.K. acknowledges the computing resources from the Carbon High-Performance Computing Cluster at Argonne National Laboratory under proposal CNM-46405. C.T. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Grant DGE-114747. J.H.M. acknowledges funding from the NSF GRFP, grant number DGE-114747, and also the Center of Nanostructuring for Efficient Energy Conversion (CNEEC) at Stanford University, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under award number DE-SC0001060. J.S.Y. appreciates the financial support from the US DOS via the International Fulbright Science & Technology Award programme. H.A. receives funding from Aramco Services Company.

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Author notes

  1. Allegra A. Latimer and Ambarish R. Kulkarni: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall Stanford, California 94305, USA

    Allegra A. Latimer, Ambarish R. Kulkarni, Hassan Aljama, Jong Suk Yoo, Charlie Tsai, Frank Abild-Pedersen, Felix Studt & Jens K. Nørskov

  2. Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

    Joseph H. Montoya

  3. SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA

    Frank Abild-Pedersen, Felix Studt & Jens K. Nørskov

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  1. Allegra A. Latimer
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Contributions

A.A.L., A.R.K., H.A., J.S.Y. and J.H.M. performed the DFT calculations; A.A.L. and A.R.K. analysed the results and prepared the manuscript. All authors contributed to the discussion and approved the manuscript. A.A.L. and A.R.K. contributed equally to this work.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jens K. Nørskov.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Latimer, A., Kulkarni, A., Aljama, H. et al. Understanding trends in C–H bond activation in heterogeneous catalysis. Nature Mater 16, 225–229 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4760

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