As one of the most abundant substances on the earth, water is vital for all known forms of life and plays essential roles in biological, geological, atmospheric, physical and chemical processes. As a chemical compound, water is also unavoidable in a majority of chemical reactions either as moisture or solvent or reactant, or oxidation product. In this talk, I will overview recent advances in the experimental observations and mechanistic understanding of the promotional role of water in heterogeneous catalysis, with an emphasis on what we have found in the past several years[1-9]. Water may exist in molecular state or dissociate to hydroxyl (OH) and hydrogen (H) species on catalyst surfaces, we have classified the roles of water into three aspects: (i) the catalytic role of molecular water including the solvation-like effect and water-mediated H-transfer, (ii) the promotional role of OH/OH− and H/H+ species, and (iii) some miscellaneous effects of water, such as water-assisted carbon removal, surface reconstruction, and active sites blocking. The results discussed here could provide a fundamental understanding of the promotional role of water in heterogeneous catalysis and may inspire the theoretical studies of water effects on other fields of chemistry and atmospheric science as well.

Theoretical insights into the role of water in heterogeneous catalysis

254th National Meeting (2017)

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