The acid-base and redox reactivity of CeO2 nanoparticles: Influence of the Hubbard U term in DFT plus U studies

[EN] The interaction of small molecules with acid-base and redox centers in small Ce21O42 nanoparticles has been theoretically investigated using the DFT + U approach with the PW91 functional and U = 0.2 and 4 eV, in order to determine the influence of the U value on the trends observed in selected properties describing such interactions. CO adsorption at low coordinated Ce4+ Lewis acid centers, water adsorption and dissociation at acid-base pairs, formation of oxygen vacancy defects by removal of an oxygen atom from the system, and interaction of molecular O-2 with such defects have been considered. The largest effect of the value of U is found for the description of the reduced Ce21O41 nanoparticle. In all other cases involving stoichiometric and oxidized Ce21O42 and Ce21O43 systems, the trends in the calculated adsorption and reaction energies, optimized geometries, charge distribution, and vibrational frequencies are quite similar at the three levels considered.Financial support from the Spanish Science and Innovation Ministry (Consolider Ingenio 2010-MULTICAT CSD2009-00050 and Subprograma de apoyo a Centros y Universidades de Excelencia Severo Ochoa SEV 2012 0267) is acknowledged. The European Union is also acknowledged by ERC-AdG-2014-671093 — SynCatMatch. Red Española de Supercomputación (RES) and Centre de Càlcul de la Universitat de València are gratefully acknowledged for computational facilities and technical assistance. T. L.-A. thanks ITQ for a contract. We thank Konstantin Neyman for providing the Ce21O42 nanoparticle model.Boronat Zaragoza, M.; López Auséns, JT.; Corma Canós, A. (2016). The acid-base and redox reactivity of CeO2 nanoparticles: Influence of the Hubbard U term in DFT plus U studies. Surface Science. 648:212-219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.susc.2015.10.047S21221964