Metal catalyzed ethylene epoxidation:A comparative density functional theory study

Ethylene epoxidation on Ag(111), Pt(111), Rh(111) and Mo(100) has been studied by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The results show that the adsorption energies of possible adsorbed species involved in the ethylene epoxidation increase in the order: Ag＜Pt＜Rh＜Mo, and the activation energies of the formation of epoxide (EtO) and acetaldehyde (Ac) follow the same order. Moreover, it is found that the smallest difference in the activation energies between EtO formation and Ac formation is shown on Ag. These results indicate that the metallic Ag shows the highest between activity and selectivity for ethylene epoxidation among the studied metal surfaces. Perhaps, the stability of OMME intermediate is the crucial factor in controlling the activity and selectivity. And the stronger the binding of OMME, the lower the activity and selectivity are. In addition, the relationships between the reaction enthalpy and activation energy on these four metal surfaces are investigated,and it is found that such a correlation is only applied for OMME(a) → EtO(a) and OMME(a) → Ac(a), while invalid for the case of C2H4(a) +O(a) → OMME(a).