Ethylene binding to Au/Cu alloy nanoparticles

摘要

Weak chemisorption of ethylene has been shown to be an important characteristic in the use of metals for the separation of ethylene from ethane. Previously, density functional theory (DFT) has been used to predict the binding energies of various metals and alloys, with Ag having the lowest chemisorption energy amongst the metals and alloys studied. Here Au/Cu alloys are investigated by a combination of DFT calculations and experimental measurements. It is inferred from experiments that the binding energy between a Au/Cu alloy and ethylene is lower than to either of the pure metals, and DFT calculations confirm that this is the case when Au segregates to the particle surface. Implications of this work suggest that it may be possible to further tune the binding energy with ethylene by compositional and morphological control of films produced from Au-surface segregated alloys. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.