The formation of palladium oxide (PdO) is thought to be responsible for the exceptional activity of supported Pd catalysts toward the complete oxidation of alkanes under oxygen-rich conditions. In this talk, I will discuss our recent investigations of the adsorption and activation of n-alkanes on a PdO(101) thin film that is prepared by oxidizing Pd(111) in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) using an oxygen atom beam. We find that alkanes adsorb relatively strongly on the PdO(101) surface by forming s-complexes along the rows of coordinatively unsaturated (cus) Pd atoms, and that this adsorbed state acts as the precursor for initial C-H bond cleavage. I will discuss characteristics of the binding and activation of alkane s-complexes on PdO(101) as determined from both experiment and density functional theory calculations.

Alkane adsorption and activation on a PdO(101) thin film

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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