The synergistic effects of the Cu–CeO2(111) catalysts on the adsorption and dissociation of water molecules

Abstract

The interaction of water molecules with the Cu-CeO(2)(111) catalyst (Cu/CeO(2) and Cu(0.08)Ce(0.92)O(2)) is studied systematically by using the DFT+U method. Although both molecular and dissociative adsorption states of water are observed on all the considered Cu-CeO(2)(111) systems, the dissociation is preferable thermodynamically. Furthermore, the dissociation of water molecule relates to the geometric structure (e.g. whether or not there are oxygen vacancies; whether or not the reduced substrate retains a fluorite structure) and the electronic structure (e.g. whether or not there is reduced cerium, Ce(3+)) of the substrate.In addition, the adsorption of water molecules induces variations of the electronic structure of the substrate, especially for Cu/CeO(2-x)(111)-B (a Cu atom adsorbed symmetrically above the vacancy of the reduced ceria) and highly reduced Cu(0.08)Ce(0.92)O(2)(111), i.e. the Cu(0.08)Ce(0.92)O(2-x)(111)-h. The variations of electronic structure promote the dissociation of water for the highly reduced system Cu(0.08)Ce(0.92)O(2-x)(111)-h. More importantly, the improvement of WGS reaction by Cu-ceria is expected to be by the associative route through different intermediates.