Search

In computational surface catalysis, the calculation of activation energies of chemical reactions is expensive, which in many cases limits our ability to understand complex reaction networks. Here, we present a universal, machine learning-based approach for the prediction of activation energies for reactions of C, O, and H containing molecules on transition metal surfaces. We rely on generalized Bronsted-Evans-Polanyi relationships in combination with machine learning-based multiparameter regression techniques to train our model for reactions included in the University of Arizona Reaction database. In our best approach, we find a Mean Absolute Error for activation energies within our test set of 0.15 eV if the reaction energy is known and 0.19 eV if the reaction energy is unknown. We expect that this methodology will often replace the explicit calculation of activation energies within surface catalysis when exploring large reaction networks or screening catalysts for desirable properties in the future.

International audience; Reactions at the water/solid interface are central to the development of sustain- able processes, from biomass upgrading to photo- and electrocatalysis. To gain atom- istic insight in these reactions, modelling approaches have been constantly improved over the past decade. Polarisable continuum models have considerably improved the description of charge separation and enabled a proper inclusion of the surface polari- sation in electrochemistry and photocatalysis. Micro-solvation has been used to probe the impact of H-bonding at the water/catalyst interface, a key ingredient to explain observed solvent effects in liquid heterogeneous catalysis. Last, considerable efforts have been dedicated to reach a full atomistic description of the water/liquid inter- face, allowing the evaluation of activation energies of catalytic reactions and catalyst decomposition. In this Viewpoint, we illustrate advantages and limitations of current methods and provide perspectives.

International audience

OBJECTIVE Prism adaptation was shown to modify auditory perception. Using a dichotic listening task, which assesses auditory divided attention, benefits of a rightward prism adaptation were demonstrated in neglect patients (i.e., a syndrome following right hemisphere brain damage) by reducing their left auditory extinction. It is currently unknown whether prism adaptation affects auditory divided attention in healthy subjects. In the present study, we investigated the aftereffects of prism adaptation on dichotic listening. METHOD A sample of 47 young adults performed a dichotic listening task, in which pairs of words were presented with two words sounded simultaneously, one in each ear. Three parameters were measured: The percentage of recalled words, the percentage of correctly recalled words, and the laterality index (LI). RESULTS Prism adaptation to a leftward optical deviation (L-PA) significantly increased the overall percentage of recalled words (p = .044) and that from the right ear (p = .002), and the overall LI (p = .049). CONCLUSIONS For the first time, these findings demonstrate that L-PA produced an orientation of the auditory divided attention in favor of the right ear in healthy participants. This asymmetrical aftereffect provides a new argument in favor of the cross-modal dimension of prism adaptation, although an acclimatization effect of the dichotic listening task is also discussed. Our study opens up a new avenue for using prism adaptation in the field of auditory rehabilitation requiring a modulation of auditory attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

fff; International audience; Identifying the structure of the most active site is essential to improve the performance of supported metal catalysts. For structure-sensitive reactions, in silico design cannot be easily achieved combining the scaling relations and Brønsted–Evans–Polanyi relations, which are only built on energy-based descriptors. We used here the generalized coordination number as a structural descriptor and established that low-coordinated sites are desirable when using Co and Cu to perform the acceptor-less alcohol dehydrogenation reaction.

We uncover the existence of several competitive mechanisms of water oxidation on the β-CoOOH (10-14) surface by going beyond the classical 4-step mechanism frequently used to study this reaction at the DFT level. Our results demonstrate the importance of two-site reactivity and of purely chemical steps with the associated activation energies. Taking the electrochemical potential explicitly into account leads to modifications of the reaction energy profiles finally leading to the proposition of a new family of mechanisms involving tetraoxidane intermediates. The two-site mechanisms revealed in this work are of key importance to rationalize and predict the impact of dopants in the design of future catalysts.

The synthesis of Co-Ru bimetallic nanoparticles was performed by co-reduction of Co(II) and Ru(III) salts in octan-1-ol, acting both as a solvent and a mild reducing agent. The metal composition was varied in the entire range, from pure Co to pure Ru. Although Co and Ru are miscible in the bulk, the formation of nanoalloys is not straightforward and requires selecting carefully reaction parameters such as the nature of the solvent and that of the metal precursors. The formation of nanoalloys was unambiguously evidenced by HAADF STEM–EDX analyses. The particle size and the size dispersity were found to decrease with increasing Ru amount, yielding very small and monodisperse particles for the richest compositions in Ru. The unsupported particles were tested for the acceptorless alcohol dehydrogenation using (±)-octan-2-ol and octan-1-ol as model substrates. The results clearly show a synergetic effect since the bimetallic particles exhibit better performances than their monometallic counterparts.

Controlling the adsorption/desorption of molecules at the solid/water interface is central to a wide range of fields from catalysis to batteries. For instance, adsorbing alcohols at the surface of γ-Al2O3 can prevent its chemical weathering. To make sure that γ-Al2O3 remains a stable catalyst support under operating conditions in liquid water, it is crucial to design alcohols that cannot desorb easily. Taking ethanol as a typical example, we here compare the adsorption/desorption mechanism for two distinct adsorption modes of ethanol at the water/alumina interface using various DFT-based approaches. Thermodynamic integration simulations unambiguously identify ethoxy as the more stable adsorption mode. The presence of liquid water yields to adsorption barriers fo adsorption barriers of at least 20 kJ·mol-1. To better assess the effect of water, we perform 3D well-tempered metadynamics simulations that include a bias accounting for solvation effects and proton transfers at the interface. Activating the proton shuffling allows to explore a variety of protonation and hydration configurations and yields to higher barriers (up to 40 kJ·mol−1) than the ones predicted by thermodynamic integration where the solvent reorganisation was assumed to be decoupled from the desorption. This study illustrates the importance of treating explicitly solvation effects when modelling reactions at the solid/liquid interface.

International audience; Isosorbide isomerisation is a known reaction that can proceed over Ru and Ni-based heterogeneous catalysts. As a rule, an exogenous H2 pressure (40–100 bar) is required, even though H2 does not participate stoichiometrically in the reaction. By marrying experiments with DFT computations, we ascribe the role of H2 in isosorbide isomerisation to a coverage effect on the catalyst surface. We demonstrate the possibility of conducting the reaction at a low H2 pressure either in the presence of an inert gas to increase H2 solubility in an underlying solvent or using 2-propanol as a hydrogen donor. This might benefit the economy and safety of a potential industrial process.

Organic/oxide interfaces play an important role in many areas of chemistry, and in particular for lubrication and corrosion. Molecular dynamics simulations are the method of choice for providing complementary insight to experiments. However, the force fields used to simulate the interaction between molecules and oxide surfaces tend to capture only weak physisorption interactions, discarding the stabilizing Lewis acid/base interactions. We here propose an improvement of the usual molecular mechanics description (based on Lennard-Jones and electrostatic interactions) by addition of an attractive Gaussian potential between reactive sites of the surface and heteroatoms of adsorbed organic molecules, leading to the GLJ potential. The interactions of four oxygenated and four amine molecules with the typical and widespread hematite and γ-alumina surfaces are investigated. The total RMSD for all probed molecules decreases from 29.2 to 5.7 kcal/mol, and the corresponding percentage from 107.4 to 22.6% over hematite, while on γ-alumina the RMSD decreases from 21.5 to 7.6 kcal/mol, despite using a single parameter for all five chemically inequivalent surface aluminum atoms. Applying GLJ to the simulation of n-octadecanamine and N-tetradecyldiethanolamine adsorbed films on hematite and alumina respectively demonstrates that mobility of the surfactants is overestimated by the common LJ potential, while GLJ shows a strong structuration and slow dynamics of the surface films, as could be expected from the first-principles adsorption energies for model head-groups.

International audience; Obtaining an atomic-scale description of the chemical interactions of phosphates with an oxide support, such as γ-Al2O3, is essential to get a rational understanding of the role of phosphate additives for a great number of heterogeneous catalysts, as well as to improve the use of this element. Combining cutting-edge Dynamic Nuclear Polarization Surface Enhanced NMR Spectroscopy (DNP SENS) techniques with Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations, we provide an accurate molecular description of phosphate speciation on γ-Al2O3 surfaces for various P surface coverages after drying at 120 °C. Thanks to 31P double- and triple-quantum filtered NMR experiments as well as to 27Al–31P dipolar- and scalar-based correlation spectra, we demonstrate the presence of polyphosphates and of Al–O–P connectivities at the exposed facets of γ-Al2O3. DFT-based thermodynamics shows that phosphates (mono- or di-) are preferentially covalently bonded on the (1 1 0) γ-Al2O3 facet with high-dentation modes. These high-dentation modes are favored by entropy gain due to water desorption. We used the gauge-including projector-augmented wave (GIPAW) DFT method for 31P NMR chemical shifts calculations and propose a systematic identification of the various types of phosphates covalently or noncovalently bonded to the alumina surface. The calculations confirm the existence of polyphosphates as observed experimentally. Since the surface condensation into polyphosphates is endergonic, the presence of polyphosphates on the surface is likely to result from their direct adsorption in impregnation solution. The observed increasing concentration of polyphosphates with the coverage could be related to a less likely hydrolysis due to the reduced availability of sites to stabilize the fragmented oligomers. This understanding opens the way to a better control over the speciation of phosphate species that are known to be key in the preparation of supported catalysts over alumina.

Solvent effects are notoriously difficult to describe for metallic nanoparticles (NPs). Here, we introduce GAL21 which is the first pairwise additive force field that is specifically designed to modulate the near chemisorption energy of water as a function of the coordination numbers of the metallic atoms. We find a quadratic dependence to be most suitable for capturing the dependence of the adsorption energy of water on the generalized coordination number (GCN) of the metal atoms. GAL21 has been fitted against DFT adsorption energies for Cu, Ag, Au, Ni, Pd, Pt, and Co on 500 configurations and validated on about 3000 configurations for each metal, constructed on five surfaces with GCNs varying from 2.5 to 11.25. Depending on the metals, the root mean square deviation is found between 0.7 kcal mol−1 (Au) to 1.6 kcal mol−1 (Ni). Using GAL21, as implemented in the open-source code CP2K, we then evaluate the solvation energy of Au55 and Pt55 NPs in water using thermodynamic integration. The solvation free energy is found to be larger for Pt than for Au and systematically larger than 200 kcal mol−1, demonstrating the large impact of solvent on the surface energetics of NPs. Still, given that the amorphous NPs are both, the most stable and the most solvated ones, we do not predict a change in the preferred morphology between the gas-phase and in water. Finally, based on a linear regression on three sizes of NPs (from 38 to 147), the solvation energy for Au and Pt surface atoms is found to be −5.2 and −9.9 kcal mol−1, respectively.

We present the open-source python package DockOnSurf which automates the generation and optimization of low-energy adsorption configurations of molecules on extended surfaces and nanoparticles. DockOnSurf is especially geared towards handling polyfunctional flexible adsorbates. The use of this high-throughput workflow allows to carry out the screening of adsorbate-surface configurations in a systematic, customizable and traceable way, while keeping the focus on the chemically relevant structures.The screening strategy consists on splitting the exploration of the adsorbate-surface configurational space into chemically meaningful domains, i.e., by choosing among different conformers to adsorb, surface adsorption sites, adsorbate anchoring points, orientations and allowing dissociation of (acidic) protons. We demonstrate the performance of the main features based on varying examples, ranging from CO adsorption on a gold nanoparticle to sorbitol adsorption on hematite. Through the use of the presented program, we aim to foster efficiency, traceability and ease of use in research within tribology, catalysis, nanoscience and surface science in general.

Controlling the adsorption/desorption of molecules at the solid/water interface is central to a diversity of fields from catalysis to batteries. Preventing the desorption of alcohol at the gamma-Al2O3/water interface is key to increase the stability of this catalyst support to perform reactions in water. Taking ethanol as a typical example, we investigate here the mechanism of desorption of two adsorption modes, namely chemisorbed ethanol and ethoxy, from the interface to the bulk water using three DFT-based simulations. Our 3D well-tempered metadynamics simulations include a bias in solvation, which triggers possible proton transfers with water. They evidence that solvation needs to be increased prior to desorption in both cases. Comparison with static approaches and thermodynamic integration simulations unambiguously identifies ethoxy as the more stable adsorption mode. It is more stable by at least 40 kJ/mol when considering adsorption at the gas/solid interface. And the presence of liquid water yields to a desorption barriers ranging from 89 kJ/mol (thermodynamic integration) to 149 kJ/mol (well-tempered metadynamics). The observed difference between the two biased ab initio molecular dynamics methods can be ascribed to the intrinsic difficulty of sampling the desorbed state vs. the adsorbed state.

International audience; Numerous studies showed that, after adaptation to a leftward optical deviation, pseudone-glect behavior (overrepresentation of the left part compared to the right part of the space) becomes neglect-like behavior (overrepresentation of the right part compared to the left part of the space). Cognitive after-effects have also been shown in cognitive processes that are not intrinsically spatial in nature, but show spatial association as numbers or letters. The space-auditory frequency association (with low frequencies on the left and high frequencies on the right) raises the question of whether prism adaptation can produce after-effects on auditory perception. We used a new experimental protocol, named the 'auditory interval bisection judgment', where participants had to estimate what limit of an auditory interval (low or high) a target frequency was closer to. We calculated the subjective auditory interval center. In pre-test, there was a spontaneous bias of the subjective center of the auditory interval toward the lower limit. That was the first demonstration of pseudoneglect behavior in auditory frequency representation. ANOVA realized on all participants did not show significant results of prism adaptation, but a posteriori analyses on musicians showed that, after adaptation to a leftward optical deviation, there were more target frequencies perceived as closer to the lower limit of the auditory interval. This result corroborates the shift of the subjective center of the auditory interval toward high frequency limit. These innovative results are discussed in terms of pu-tative neural substrates underpinning the transfer of visuomotor plasticity to auditory frequency perception.

Catalysts able to selectively dehydrate 2,3-butanediol into butadiene have been designed. These catalysts, based on rare-earth orthophosphates showed that 58% selectivity to butadiene could be obtained at total conversion at only 300 °C, and were relatively stable. While the deactivation could be delayed by addition of water to the gas feeds, it could not be avoided and a regeneration was necessary. This regeneration was achieved by a simple heat treatment under air for a few hours at 450 °C. All results showed that Lewis acid sites corresponding to the rare earth cations are involved in the dehydration of 2,3-butanediol into butadiene. This dehydration occurs with the intermediate formation of 3-buten-2ol, probably over acid-base concerted sites and the subsequent dehydration of 3BDOL to butadiene over weak Bronsted acid sites. All types of sites appear present on the catalysts surface and distributed in a relatively optimal way.

International audience; Converting biomass into sustainable chemicals and energy feedstocks requires innovative heterogeneous catalysts able to efficiently work in aqueous conditions. Computational chemistry is a key asset in the design of these novel catalysts, but it has to face two challenges: the large reaction networks and the potential role of hydration. They can be addressed using scaling relations such as Brønsted-Evans-Polanyi (BEP) and solvation models, respectively. In this study, we show that typical reaction and activation energies of alcohol decomposition on Pt(111) are not strongly modified by the inclusion of the water solvent as a continuum model. In contrast, adding a single water molecule strongly favors O-H and C-OH scission while it prevents CO and to a lesser extent CC scissions. The resulting BEP relationships partially reflect these changes induced by the solvent. Predicting Pt-catalyzed alcohol decomposition in water thus should account for the influence of the solvent on thermodynamics and kinetics. In addition, we found that the reaction energy obtained in presence of an explicit water molecule scales with the ones obtained in vacuum. Hence, we reveal that vacuum computations in combination with corrections based on our linear regressions are able to capture the important H-bonding effect.

Conversion of renewable resources to the chemicals and materials needed for consumer products represents an exciting challenge for catalysis science. Here we discuss our initial progress on synthesizing C6 diacids from the sugar fermentation intermediate α-homo-citric acid lactone using supported heterogeneous catalysts in water. Using high-throughput catalysis testing we have identified several promising catalysts for this process that yield different amounts of the three C6 diacids: adipic, 2-methylglutaric and 2-ethylsuccinic. The process involves a relay of four different chemical reactions: dehydration, alkene isomerization, decarboxylation and alkene hydrogenation. DFT studies have been initiated in order to rationalize the activity and selectivity based on catalyst properties.

Redox flow batteries (RFBs) offer advantages as compared to conventional batteries, such as the possibility of decoupling the energy density (volume and concentration of the electrolyte) and the power density (surface contact between electrode and electrolyte) of the battery. Organic redox flow batteries (ORFBs) have gained attention recently because they promise to be more eco-friendly and cheaper than their inorganic counterparts. Particularly, organic molecules are highly tunable in terms of both solubility and redox potential. Many families of organic molecules have been reported for this purpose, with quinones being particularly promising [Symons, 2021]. However, ORFBs are limited in terms of their cell potential and stability. To discover optimal molecules for ORFBs, many research groups have employed molecular modelling methods [Er et al., 2015]. These studies using density functional theory (DFT) in implicit solvents only compute the Nernst potential [Zhang et al., 2020] of the one-step coupled e- and H+ redox reaction (see Figure 1(a)), ignoring the overpotential of the reaction. Our study addresses two aspects going beyond this state of the art: 1) considering the intermediate, semiquinone, of the reaction (see Figure 1(b)) and thus the thermodynamic overpotential; and 2) incorporating the effects of the electrode/electrolyte interface, where the actual electrochemical processes take place (see Figure 1(c)). Since the exact atomic structure of the carbon felt is unknown, we use different model carbon morphologies to calculate the thermodynamic overpotential of the given reaction. Grand-canonical DFT in combination with the linearized Poisson–Boltzmann implicit solvent model [Abidi et al., 2020] was used to calculate the overpotential (versus SHE) of the two-step reduction reaction of non-substituted p-benzoquinone (BQ) on 6 different models for carbon surfaces - graphite basal plane (0001), and edges (1100), (1000), zigzag nanotube, armchair nanotube and Buckyball. The overpotential on these surfaces was found to be between 0.2-0.5 V. The solution-phase overpotential due to the intermediate was 0.3 V for non substituted quinone, and 0.5 V for both the substituted quinones that we studied (R=CN and R=OMe). At the graphite basal plane, while for the non-substituted quinone, the overpotential negligibly increased, for the substituted ones, the overpotential reduced by ~0.2 V each (see Figure 1(d)). This showed an interesting relationship between the substituents of the quinone and the electrode surface. Extending our study further, we explored the effect of defects in the graphite basal plane: substitutional B or N doping, and the Stone-Wales (SW) defect. We found that the overpotential of the BQ reduction reaction did not change for the SW defect, and it increased by 0.1 V if a C-atom was substituted by a B-atom and decreased by 0.1 V, for N-atom substitution. The N-doped surface had the least overpotential (0.25 V), which suggests that doping the electrode with nitrogen would make better electrodes. From these results, we concluded that the atomic-level morphology of the surface does not affect the overpotential of the reaction as much as the dopants in the surface do. In summary, our results demonstrate that grand-canonical DFT leads to detailed insights on the chemistry of ORFB at the electrode. From an electrochemical viewpoint, we show that estimating the overpotential of ORFB requires the consideration of the intermediate in the reduction reaction, and that substituting the quinones with CN or OMe decreases the overpotential on the electrode surface. Finally, the effect of the atomic-level morphology of the electrode does not significantly affect the overpotential, while substitutional N-doping lowers the overpotential. References: Abidi, N., Lim, K. R. G., Seh, Z. W., & Steinmann, S. N. (2020). WIREs Computational Molecular Science, 11(3), e1499. Er, S., Suh, C., Marshak, M. P., & Aspuru-Guzik, A. (2015).Chemical Science, 6(2), 885 - 893. Symons, P. (2021). Current Opinion in Electrochemistry, 29, 100759. Zhang, Q., Khetan, A., & Er, S. (2020). Scientific Reports, 10(1), 22149. Figure 1: (a) One-step coupled 2e-,2H+ reduction reaction of benzoquinone (Q) into hydroquinone (HQ); (b) Two-step e-,H+ coupled reduction reaction via the intermediate, semiquinone (SQ); (c) Two-step e-,H+ transfer reduction reaction at the interface of carbon electrode and electrolyte; For substituted quinones, we used model examples of electron withdrawing substituents Ri={1,2,3,4}=CN and electron donating sbstituents Ri={1,3}=OMe (d) Overpotential of reduction reaction of different quinones in solution phase (blue) and at the graphite basal plane (0001) (red) is compared. While for non-substituted quinone, the overpotential only slightly increases due to the surface, for the substituted cases, the overpotential due to the surface decreases by 0.2 V. Figure 1

International audience; The origin of enantioselectivity in the reaction of chiral Ru amino amide complexes in the asymmetric transfer hydrogenation of acetophenone was investigated using DFT calculations. For the most stable active catalysts, the full free energy profiles for the reaction were calculated according to the concerted hydrogen transfer mechanism. We succeeded in reproducing the experimentally observed enantioselectivity for the studied Ru amino amide complexes. Our results indicate that the high enantioselectivity can be explained by a stabilizing CH-π interaction existing between the phenyl group of acetophenone and the aromatic substituent of the catalyst, which plays a significant role in selectivity. Finally, our results show that important insights can be obtained with such a theoretical approach not simply to explain the origin of the reaction asymmetry but also to predict the enantiomeric excess. This can help experimentalists to design new enantioselective catalysts.

International audience; Zeolites are essential materials to industry due to their adsorption and catalytic properties. The best current approach to prepare a targeted zeolite still relies on trial and error's synthetic procedures since a rational understanding of the impact of synthesis variables on the final structures is still missing. To discern the role of a variety of organic templates, we perform simulations of the early stages of condensation of silica oligomers by combining DFT, Brønsted-Evans-Polanyi relationships and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. We investigate an extended reaction path mechanism including 258 equilibrium reactions and 242 chemical species up to silica octamers, comparing the computed concentrations of Si oligomers with 29SI NMR experimental data. The effect of the templating agent is linked to the modification of the intramolecular H-bond network in the growing oligomer, which produces higher concentration of 4-membered ring intermediates, precursors of the key double-four ring building blocks present on more than 39 known zeolite topologies.

International audience; To accelerate the conversion to more sustainable lubricants, there is a need for an improved understanding of the adsorption at the solid/liquid interface. As a first step, the DFT computed adsorption energies can be used to screen the ability of additives to cover a surface. Analogously to what has been found in catalysis with the universal scaling relations, we investigate here if a general universal ranking of additives can be found, independently of the surface considered. We divided our set of 25 diverse representative molecules into aprotic and protic molecules. We compared their adsorption over alumina and hematite, which are models of surface oxidized aluminum and steel, respectively. The adsorption energy ranking of our set is not strongly affected by alumina hydration. In contrast, adsorption on hematite is more strongly affected by hydration since all exposed Fe Lewis acid sites are converted into hydroxylated Brønsted basic sites. However, the ranking obtained on hydrated hematite is close to the one obtained on dry alumina, paving the road to a fast screening of additives. In our library, protic molecules are more strongly adsorbed than non-protic molecules. In particular, methyl and dimethyl phosphates are the most strongly adsorbed ones, followed by Nmethyldiethanolamine, succinimide and ethanoic acid. Additives combining these functional groups are expected to strongly adsorb at the solid/liquid interface and, therefore, likely to be relevant components of lubricant formulations.

International audience; Ruthenium catalysts for olefin metathesis are widely viewed as water-tolerant. Evidence is presented, however, that even low concentrations of water cause catalyst decomposition, severely degrading yields. Of 11 catalysts studied, fast-initiating examples (e.g., the Grela catalyst RuCl2(H2IMes)(=CHC6H4-2-O i Pr-5-NO2) were most affected. Highest water-tolerance was exhibited by slowly-initiating iodide and cyclic (alkyl)(amino)carbene derivatives. Computational investigations indicated that hydrogen-bonding of water to substrate can also play a role, by retarding cyclization relative to decomposition. These results have important implications for olefin metathesis in organic media, where water is a ubiquitous contaminant, and for aqueous metathesis, which currently requires superstoichiometric "catalyst" for demanding reactions.

International audience; Acceptor-less alcohol dehydrogenation reaction allows the co-production of added-value carbonyl compounds and H 2 from alcohols. Focusing on supported Ru and Cu catalysts, we evaluated the support effect on the dehydrogenation of 2-octanol and 1-octanol and identified the side products as resulting from aldolisation coupling. The most active and selective catalysts were then tested on the aliphatic vicinal-diol octan-1,2-diol and the highest conversion was reached using Cu/ZrO 2 (60%) with a high selectivity (94%) towards 1-hydroxy-2-octanone.

International audience; Cobalt nanorods and cobalt nanoplatelets, prepared by the same organometallic route with two different metal precursors, were tested for the first time in the acceptor-less dehydrogenation of 2-octanol. The nature of the metal precursor determines not only nanoparticle morphology but also their surface chemistry. While cobalt nanorods showed high conversions (up to 85% after 24 h) and complete selectivity toward 2-octanone with concomitant molecular hydrogen production, cobalt nanoplatelets were practically inactive. Here, we show that this striking difference in the catalytic properties is not associated with facet-dependent differences in reactivity, but rather with different surface chemistry. The activity critically depends on the coordinating ability of the adsorbed species under catalytic reaction conditions and to a smaller degree on their concentration, as evidenced by ligand exchange experiments at room temperature as well as by direct addition of ligands in the reaction during catalysis by cobalt nanorods. This study shows that to optimize performances with unsupported metal nanocatalysts, the capping ligands should be selected by considering their ability to reversibly dissociate from the metal surface during catalysis.

Because BF4− is a labile, non- or weakly coordinating anion, it is generally chosen by chemists who do not want the anion to interfere with the associated cation. Herein, we demonstrate that BF4− actually strongly binds to triazole-appended dipyrromethenes (TADs). In particular, HETCOR NMR experiments and DFT calculations were used to rationalize the results observed with anion titrations. Hence, special care should be taken when considering that BF4− is innocent.

International audience; Modeling adsorption at metal/water interfaces is a cornerstone toward an improved understanding in a variety of fields from heterogeneous catalysis to corrosion. We propose and validate a hybrid scheme that combines the adsorption free energies obtained in the gas phase at the density functional theory level with the variation in solvation from the bulk phase to the interface evaluated using a MM-based alchemical transformation, denoted MMsolv. Using the GAL17 force field for the platinum/water interaction, we retrieve a qualitatively correct interaction energy of the water solvent at the interface. This interaction is of near chemisorption character and thus challenging, both for the alchemical transformation and also for the fixed point-charge electrostatics. Our scheme passes through a state characterized by a well-behaved physisorption potential for the Pt(111)/H2O interaction to converge the free energy difference. The workflow is implemented in the freely available SolvHybrid package. We first assess the adsorption of a water molecule at the Pt/water interface, which turns out to be a stringent test. The intrinsic error of our quantum-mechanical/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) hybrid scheme is limited to 6 kcal mol–1 through the introduction of a correction term to attenuate the electrostatic interaction between near-chemisorbed water molecules and the underlying Pt atoms. Next, we show that the MMsolv solvation free energy of Pt (−0.46 J m–2) is in good agreement with the experimental estimate (−0.32 J m–2). Furthermore, we show that the entropy contribution at room temperature is roughly of equal magnitude as the free energy but with an opposite sign. Finally, we compute the adsorption energy of benzene and phenol at the Pt(111)/water interface, one of the rare systems for which experimental data are available. In qualitative agreement with the experiment, but in stark contrast with a standard implicit solvent model, the adsorption of these aromatic molecules is strongly reduced (i.e., less exothermic by ∼30 and 40 kcal mol–1 for our QM/MM hybrid scheme and experiment, respectively, but ∼0 with the implicit solvent) at the solid/liquid interface compared to the solid/gas interface. This reduction occurs mainly because of the competition between the organic adsorbate and the solvent for adsorption on the metallic surface. The semiquantitative agreement with experimental estimates for the adsorption energy of aromatic molecules thus validates the soundness of our hybrid QM/MM scheme.

Modeling adsorption at the metal/water interfaces is a corner-stone towards an improved understanding in a variety of fields from heterogeneous catalysis to corrosion. We propose and validate a hybrid scheme that combines the adsorption free energies obtained in gas phase at the DFT level with the variation in solvation from the bulk phase to the interface evaluated using a molecular mechanics based alchemical transformation, denoted MMsolv. Using the GAL17 force field for the platinum/water interaction, we retrieve a qualitatively correct interaction energy of the water solvent at the interface. This interaction is of near chemisorption character and thus challenging, both for the alchemical transformation, but also for the fixed point-charge electrostatics. Our scheme passes through a state characterized by a well-behaved physisorption potential for the Pt(111)/H2O interaction to converge the free energy difference. The workflow is implemented in the freely available SolvHybrid package. We first assess the adsorption of a water molecule at the Pt/water interface, which turns out to be a stringent test. The intrinsic error of our QM-MM hybrid scheme is limited to 6 kcal/mol through the introduction of a correction term to attenuate the electrostatic interaction between near-chemisorbed water molecules and the underlying Pt atoms. Next, we show that the MMsolv solvation free energy of Pt (-0.46 J/m2) is in good agreement with the experimental estimate (-0.32 J/m2). Furthermore, we show that the entropy contribution at room temperature is roughly of equal magnitude as the free energy, but with opposite sign. Finally, we compute the adsorption energy of benzene and phenol at the Pt(111)/water interface, one of the rare systems for which experimental data are available. In qualitative agreement with experiment, but in stark contrast with a standard implicit solvent model, the adsorption of these aromatic molecules is strongly reduced (i.e., less exothermic by ~30 and 40 kcal/mol for our QM/MM hybrid scheme and experiment, respectively, but ~0 with the implicit solvent) at the solid/liquid compared to the solid/gas interface. This reduction is mainly due to the competition between the organic adsorbate and the solvent for adsorption on the metallic surface. The semi-quantitative agreement with experimental estimates for the adsorption energy of aromatic molecules thus validates the soundness of our hybrid QM-MM scheme.

Understanding the role of an electric field on the surface of a catalyst is crucial in tuning and promoting the catalytic activity of metals. Herein, we evaluate the oxidation of methane over a Pt surface with varying oxygen coverage using density functional theory. The latter is controlled by the electrode polarization, giving rise to the non-Faradaic modification of catalytic activity phenomenon. At -1 V, the Pt(111) surface is present, while at 1 V, α-PtO

International audience; Formic acid is obtained in equimolar amount with levulinic acid during the hydrolysis of cellulose and thus can be used as a sustainable hydrogen source in the direct levulinic acid hydrogenation towards gamma-valerolactone (biofuel additive). Ag-Pd catalysts prepared by various methods and containing different Ag:Pd ratio were investigated in this context. By combining activity tests, characterization of the main physicochemical properties of the catalysts and DFT study of formic acid decomposition, the key factors responsible for the activity of Ag-Pd catalysts in both the formic acid decomposition and the subsequent hydrogenation of levulinic acid were specified. Pd is shown to be active, but prone to poisoning by CO, while the CO poisoning remains limited on diluted Ag-Pd alloy with strong intermetallic interaction, where its adsorption is very weak thanks to the isolation of Pd atoms. Therefore, the catalyst containing 4%Ag-1%Pd/AlOOH showed the highest selectivity in formic acid decomposition as well as the highest activity in levulinic acid hydrogenation (34% conversion in 5 h at 190°C).

Understanding the structure of the water/metal interfaces plays an important role in many are as ranging from surface chemistry to environmental processes. Due to their intrinsic complexity, the water/metal interfaces cannot yet be adequately described by quantum mechanical approaches and accurate force-fields are therefore needed. We develop and parametrize GAL19, a novel force-field to describe the interaction of water with two facets (111 and 100) of five metals (Pt, Pd, Au, Ag, Cu). To increase transferability compared to its predecessor GAL17, the water-metal interaction is described as a sum of pair-wise terms. The interaction energy has three contributions: (i) physisorption is described via a Tang and Toennies potential, (ii) chemisorption and surface corrugation relies on an attractive Gaussian term and (iii) the angular dependence is explicitly included as a truncated Fourier series. 13 parameters are used for each metal surface and were fitted on 250 water adsorption energies computed at the PBE+dDsC level. The performance of GAL19 was evaluated on a set of more than 600 DFT adsorption energies for each surface, leading to an average root mean square deviation (RMSD) of only 1 kcal/mol, correctly reproducing the adsorption trends: strong on Pt and Pd but weaker on Ag, Au and Cu. This force-field was then used to simulate the water/metal interface for all ten surfaces for 1 ns. Structural analyses reveal similar tendencies for all surfaces: a first, dense water layer that is mostly adsorbed on the metal top sites, and a second layer up to around 6 Å, which is less structured. On Pt and Pd, the first layer is strongly organized with water lying flat on the surface. The pairwise additive functional form allows to simulate the water adsorption on alloys, which is demonstrated at the example of Ag/Cu and Au/Pt alloys. The water/Ag-Cu interface is predicted to be disordered with water mostly adsorbed on Cu which should exacerbate the Ag reactivity. On the contrary, incorporating Pt into Au materials leads to a structuring of the water interface. Our promising results make GAL19 an ideal candidate to get representative sampling of complex metal/water interfaces as a first step towards accurate estimation of free energies of reactions in solution at the metal interface.

Prism adaptation is a well-known experimental procedure to study sensorimotor plasticity. It has been shown that following prism exposure, after-effects are not only restricted to the sensorimotor level but extend as well to spatial cognition. In the present study, we used a visuo-motor rotation task which approaches the perturbations induced by prism exposure. We induced either leftward or rightward 15-degree rotations and we presented the perturbation either abruptly (from one trial to the next) or gradually (over a 34-trial transition). First, we found that none of the conditions produced cognitive after-effects in perceptive line bisection task. This result has a strong methodological impact for prospective investigations focusing on sensorimotor plasticity while sparing space cognition; it is particularly relevant when investigating sensorimotor plasticity in patients with specific representational feature to preserve from aggravation. Second, another interesting result was the increase of the sensitivity with which we discriminate the center of the line, that we propose to call representational acuity. It improved following the perturbation more particularly after gradual exposure and persisted for some time after the sensorimotor adaptation. These innovative results are discussed in terms of sensorimotor processes underpinning the transfer of visuomotor plasticity to spatial cognition.

It well-known that mental training improves skill performance. Here, we evaluated skill acquisition and consolidation after physical or motor imagery practice, by means of an arm pointing task requiring speed-accuracy trade-off. In the main experiment, we showed a significant enhancement of skill after both practices (72 training trials), with a better acquisition after physical practice. Interestingly, we found a positive impact of the passage of time (+ 6 h post training) on skill consolidation for the motor imagery training only, without any effect of sleep (+ 24 h post training) for none of the interventions. In a control experiment, we matched the gain in skill learning after physical training (new group) with that obtained after motor imagery training (main experiment) to evaluate skill consolidation after the same amount of learning. Skill performance in this control group deteriorated with the passage of time and sleep. In another control experiment, we increased the number of imagined trials (n = 100, new group) to compare the acquisition and consolidation processes of this group with that observed in the motor imagery group of the main experiment. We did not find significant differences between the two groups. These findings suggest that physical and motor imagery practice drive skill learning through different acquisition and consolidation processes.

SSCI-VIDE+CDFA:ECI2D+CPI:SLO:MBE:NPR; International audience; The acceptor-less dehydrogenation of 2-octanol was tested over Co supported on Al2O3, C, ZnO, ZrO2 and various TiO2. The catalysts were characterized by ICP, XRD and TGA-H2. For Co/TiO2 P25, the effects of passivation, aging (storage at room temperature), and in situ activation under H2 were investigated. The catalysts have to be tested shortly after synthesis, in order to prevent deactivation. Co supported onTiO2 P25 was the most active and 69% yield of 2-octanone was obtained, using decane as a solvent. Selectivity to 2-octanone in the range of 90% to 99.9% were observed. Small amounts of C16 compounds were also formed due to aldol condensation/dehydration reactions. The catalysts exhibited higher conversion for the dehydrogenation of secondary alcohol (65-69%), in comparison to primary alcohol (2-10%). The dehydrogenation of 1,2-octanediol led principally to 1-hydroxy-2-octanone, with a selectivity of 90% and 69% for Co/TiO2 P25 and Co/TiO2 P90, respectively.

International audience; Understanding the structure of the water/metal interfaces plays an important role in many areas ranging from surface chemistry to environmental processes. The size, required phase-space sampling, and the slow diffusion of molecules at the water/metal interfaces motivate the development of accurate force fields. We develop and parametrize GAL19, a novel force field, to describe the interaction of water with two facets (111 and 100) of five metals (Pt, Pd, Au, Ag, Cu). To increase transferability compared to its predecessor GAL17, the water–metal interaction is described as a sum of pairwise terms. The interaction energy has three contributions: (i) physisorption is described via a Tang and Toennies potential, (ii) chemisorption and surface corrugation rely on an attractive Gaussian term, and (iii) the angular dependence is explicitly included as a truncated Fourier series. Thirteen parameters are used for each metal surface and were fitted on 250 water adsorption energies computed at the PBE+dDsC level. The performance of GAL19 was evaluated on a set of more than 600 DFT adsorption energies for each surface, leading to an average root-mean-square deviation of only 1 kcal/mol, correctly reproducing the adsorption trends: strong on Pt and Pd but weaker on Ag, Au, and Cu. This force field was then used to simulate the water/metal interface for all ten surfaces for 1 ns. Structural analyses reveal similar tendencies for all surfaces: a first, dense water layer that is mostly adsorbed on the metal top sites and a second layer up to around 6 Å, which is less structured. On Pt and Pd, the first layer is strongly organized with water lying flat on the surface. The pairwise additive functional form allows one to simulate the water adsorption on alloys, which is demonstrated at the example of Ag/Cu and Au/Pt alloys. The water/Ag–Cu interface is predicted to be disordered with water mostly adsorbed on Cu which should exacerbate the Ag reactivity. On the contrary, incorporating Pt into Au materials leads to a structuring of the water interface. Our promising results make GAL19 an ideal candidate to get representative sampling of complex metal/water interfaces as a first step toward accurate estimation of free energies of reactions in solution at the metal interface

SSCI-VIDE+ECI2D+SLO; International audience; Alkaline-earth phosphates efficient in the dehydration of lactic acid to acrylic acid were previously shown to contain a surface mono/dihydrogen phosphate amorphous layer composed of M2+ cations and both P═O and POH groups. In this work, acidic properties of such a layer were determined combining Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra achieved at the dehydrated state and under water vapor and density functional theory (DFT) simulations of nondefective and defective MPOH structure. The FTIR spectra of adsorbed pyridine and lutidine revealed the presence of moderate Lewis acid sites (LAS) and of POH groups interacting by H-bonding without significant protonation. DFT calculations were key to interpret FTIR spectra after adsorption of NH3: when solely adsorbed, NH3 interacts with the LAS on both the nondefective surface and the defective surface, whereas the POH for which H points up toward the gas phase are reoriented downward. Brønsted acid sites (BAS) were shown to form under water vapor. This phenomenon was shown by DFT to arise from a more acidic character of HPO42– species for the nondefective surface and casual formation of nondefective surface leading to higher amount of H2PO4– species, which are more acidic BAS.

SSCI-VIDE+CDFA+MBE:NPR; International audience; Metal catalysts are essential in the production of fuels and chemicals. Nonetheless, tailoring the exposed active sites to achieve the maximal theoretical conversion is still a great challenge. In the case of structure-sensitive reactions, such as the attractive acceptor-less alcohol dehydrogenation, playing on the exposed metallic sites appears as an appealing strategy. Still, this approach requires advanced preparation protocols and is even more difficult to implement for supported non-noble metal catalysts which easily undergo sintering. Using the polyol method, we synthesized fourteen different cobalt catalysts, which consist of unsupported shaped nanoparticles stabilized by adsorbed carboxylate ligands. Their shape and the amount of ligands were characterized by combining TEM and TGA-N2 measurements. These catalysts were found to be active in the 2-octanol dehydrogenation conditionally upon an organic layer limited to 1 to 2 monolayers. Moreover, they were fully selective towards the desired ketone and H2. The active catalysts were stable, with no leaching or modification of the shape during the reaction. Periodic DFT computations predict a greater activity of the pristine open-type facet than of the compact one, but this is not confirmed experimentally with no clear correlation between the activity expressed in turnover number and the amount of a given type of site as quantified by TEM. Further modeling including the organic layer shows that the presence of ligands reduces the sensitivity to the metallic structure. Nonetheless, these ligands generate a catalytic pocket, similar to the one found in enzymes, that interacts with the alcohol substrate through H-bonding. This pocket is the most adapted to the alcohol dehydrogenation on the open-type facet, which is mainly exposed on rods. This detailed understanding paves the way to an improved design of bespoke unsupported catalysts considering simultaneously the structure and the nature of the ligand.

International audience; To improve lubricant formulation, a better understanding of the wettability properties and hence of the interactions between the surface and the lubricant additives is a key parameter. Herein, we use density functional theory calculations to characterize 32 typical head groups, classified into four categories: protic, aprotic, aromatic and phosphorus-containing molecules. By comparing their adsorption energies on γ-alumina, used as a surface model of aluminium sheets, and their solvation energies in a model lubricant base oil, we found that the solvation energy was not a discriminant parameter while the adsorption energy was critical. Phosphates and carboxylic acids are the most strongly adsorbed, and thus more likely to yield to improved wettability properties of the lubricant through film formation. 2

© 2018 American Chemical Society. Alcohol oxidation by O2 to carboxylic acid can be operated in water using noble-metal catalysts, but relies on the undesirable addition of a base such as sodium hydroxide. Using periodic density functional theory (DFT), we built a model including the chemisorption of hydroxide anion at the metal/water interface to rationalize the pivotal role of the added base on the catalytic activity. We demonstrate that the role of the base is to polarize the surface and that a similar promotion could be obtained by tuning the electronic properties of additives, alloy, and support.

Among the best-performing homogeneous catalysts for the direct amination of activated secondary alcohols with electron-poor amine derivatives, metal triflates, such as aluminum triflate, Al(OTf)3 , stand out. Herein we report the extension of this reaction to electron-rich amines and activated primary alcohols. We provide detailed insight into the structure and reactivity of the catalyst under working conditions in both nitromethane and toluene solvent, through experiment (cyclic voltammetry, conductimetry, NMR spectroscopy), and density functional theory (DFT) simulations. Competition between aniline and benzyl alcohol for Al in the two solvents explains the different reactivities. The catalyst structures predicted from the DFT calculations were validated by the experiments. Whereas a SN 1-type mechanism was found to be active in nitromethane, we propose a SN 2 mechanism in toluene to rationalize the much higher selectivity observed when using this solvent. Also, unlike what is commonly assumed in homogeneous catalysis, we show that different active species may be active instead of only one.