Potential-dependent chemisorption of carbon monoxide on platinum electrodes : new insight from quantum-chemical calculations combined with vibrational spectroscopy

Density functional theory (DFT) using the finite cluster approach is utilized to compute binding energies, bond geometries, and vibrational properties of carbon monoxide adsorbed on Pt(111) as a function of the external interfacial field, focusing attention on the metal–CO bond itself. Comparison with electrode potential-dependent frequencies for the metal–CO (¿M–CO) as well as the much-studied intramolecular C---O (¿CO) vibration, as measured by in-situ Raman and infrared spectroscopy, facilitate their interpretation in terms of metal-chemisorbate bonding for this archetypal electrochemical system. Decomposing the calculated metal–CO binding energy and vibrational frequencies into individual orbital and steric repulsion components enables the role of such quantum-chemical interactions to the field- (and hence potential-) dependent bonding to be assessed. No simple relationship between the field(F)-dependent binding energies and the ¿M–CO frequencies is evident. While the DFT ¿M–CO–F slopes are negative at positive and small–moderate negative fields, reflecting the prevailing influence of back-donation, a ¿M–CO–F maximum is obtained at larger negative fields for atop CO, and a plateau for hollow-site CO. This Stark-tuning behavior reflects largely offsetting field-dependent contributions from p and s surface bonding, and can also be rationalized on the basis of changes in the electrostatic component of ¿M–CO from increasing M–CO charge polarization. A rough correlation between the field-dependent ¿M–CO frequencies and the corresponding bond distances, rM–CO, is observed for hollow and atop CO in that rM–CO shortens towards less positive fields, but becomes near-constant at moderate–large negative fields. A more quantitative correlation between the field-dependent C---O frequencies and bond lengths is also evident. In harmony with earlier findings (and unlike the ¿M–CO–F behavior), the ¿CO–F dependence is due chiefly to changes in the back-donation bonding component. The overall vibrational frequency-field behavior predicted by DFT is also in semi-quantitative concordance with experimental potential-dependent spectra

Field-dependent chemisorption of carbon monoxide and nitric oxide on platinum-group (111) surfaces: Quantum chemical calculations compared with infrared spectroscopy at electrochemical and vacuum-based interfaces

Density Functional Theory (DFT) is utilized to compute field- dependent binding energies and intramolecular vibrational frequencies for carbon monoxide and nitric oxide chemisorbed on five hexagonal Pt-group metal surfaces, Pt, Ir, Pd, Rh, and Ru. The results are compared with corresponding binding geometries and vibrational frequencies obtained chiefly from infrared spectroscopy in electrochemical and ultrahigh vacuum environments in order to elucidate the broad-based quantum- chemical factors responsible for the observed metal- and potential-dependent surface bonding in these benchmark diatomic chemisorbate systems. The surfaces are modeled chiefly as 13- atom metal clusters in a variable external field, enabling examination of potential-dependent CO and NO bonding at low coverages in atop and threefold-hollow geometries. The calculated trends in the CO binding-site preferences are in accordance with spectral data: Pt and Rh switch from atop to multifold coordination at negative fields, whereas Ir and Ru exhibit uniformly atop, and Pd hollow-site binding, throughout the experimentally accessible interfacial fields. These trends are analyzed with reference to metal d-band parameters by decomposing the field-dependent DFT binding energies into steric (electrostatic plus Pauli) repulsion, and donation and back-donation orbital components. The increasing tendency towards multifold CO coordination seen at more negative fields is due primarily to enhanced back-donation. The decreasing propensity for atop vs multifold CO binding seen in moving from the lower-left to the upper-right Periodic corner of the Pt- group elements is due to the combined effects of weaker donation, stronger back-donation, and weaker steric repulsion. The uniformly hollow-site binding seen for NO arises from markedly stronger back-donation and weaker donation than for CO. The metal-dependent zero-field DFT vibrational frequencies are in uniformly good agreement with experiment; a semiquantitative concordance is found between the DFT and experimental frequency-field ("Stark-tuning") slopes. Decomposition of the DFT bond frequencies shows that the redshifts observed upon chemisorption are due to donation as well as back-donation interactions; the metal-dependent trends, however, are due to a combination of several factors. While the observed positive Stark-tuning slopes are due predominantly to field-dependent back-donation, their observed sensitivity to the binding site and metal again reflect the interplay of several interaction components. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-9606(00)70234-0