Upgrading of primary alcohols by C-H bond breaking currently requires temperatures of &gt;200 °C. In this work, we find a pathway for conversion of methanol over a CeO2(111) with C-H bond breaking and the subsequent desorption of formaldehyde, even below room temperature. This is of particular interest because CeO2 is a naturally abundant and inexpensive metal oxide. We combine density functional theory and kinetic Monte Carlo methods to show that the low-temperature C–H bond breaking occurs via disproportionation of adjacent methoxy species. We further show from calculations that the same transition state with comparable activation energy exists for other primary alcohols; with ethanol, 1-propanol, and 1-butanol explicitly calculated. These findings indicate a promising class of transition states to search for in seeking low-temperature C–H bond breaking over inexpensive oxides.

Low temperature C-H bond breaking on an inexpensive metal oxide: Methanol to formaldehyde on cerium oxide

256th National Meeting (2018)

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