Site-Specific Product Selectivity of Stepped Pt Surfaces for Methane Dehydrogenation

Abstract

Through density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we show that, in contrast to terrace sites of Pt(211) and Pt(111), on steplike sites of Pt(211) and Pt(110)-(2 × 1), methylene is more stable than methyl. The resulting site-dependent product selectivity for methane dissociation allows us to conciliate between theory and recent reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS) experiments, which might open a door to new applications of vicinal surfaces of Pt in heterogeneous catalysis and as templates for nanoscale patterning of self-assembled monolayers.