Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106
www.elsevier.nl/locate/susc

Mechanism of the hydrogenation of CO to methanol on a2
Cu(100) surface: dipped adcluster model study
Zhen-Ming Hu a,1, Kunio Takahashi a, Hiroshi Nakatsuji a,b, *a Department of Synthetic Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku,
Kyoto 606-8501, Japanb Institute for Fundamental Chemistry, 34-4 Takano-Nishihiraki-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606, Japan
Received 16 October 1998; accepted for publication 12 August 1999

Abstract
The mechanism of the hydrogenation of CO to methanol on a Cu(100) surface was studied using the dipped2
adcluster model (DAM ) combined with ab initio Hartree–Fock (HF ) and second-order Møller–Plesset (MP2)calculations. The Langmuir–Hinshelwood (LH ) mode, which corresponds to the reaction between coadsorbed specieson the surface, was adopted. Our calculations show that hydrogen and formate are adsorbed at short-bridge sites.
The coadsorption of hydrogen and CO , in which CO is chemisorbed in the bent anionic state, is described well by2
2
the DAM. Five successive hydrogenations are involved in the hydrogenation of adsorbed CO to methanol: the2intermediates are formate, dioxomethylene, formaldehyde and methoxy. The geometries of these intermediates andthe transition states, as well as the energy diagrams in the reaction process, are presented. The rate-limiting step isthe hydrogenation of adsorbed formate. Subsequent steps occur relatively readily, and lead to the formation of
methanol. Clearly, any factor that could enhance the hydrogenation of formate on copper should lead to enhanced
activity in methanol synthesis. © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Ab initio quantum chemical methods and calculations; Carbon dioxide; Catalysis; Chemisorption; Copper; Hydrogen;
Methanol; Surface chemical reaction

1. Introduction
The hydrogenation of CO to methanol on a2
copper-based catalyst is one of the most extensively
studied industrial processes, since it is promising
not only with regard to the use of CO [1,2], but
2also because methanol is a key material for thesynthesis of other organic materials, such as form* Corresponding author. Fax: +81-75-753-5910.
E-mail address: hiroshi@sbchem.kyoto-u.ac.jp(H. Nakatsuji)
1 Present address: Department of Chemistry, Dalhousie
University, Halifax, Canada, B3H 4J3.

aldehyde, alkyl halides and acetic acids.
Industrially, methanol is now made catalyticallyfrom synthesis gas containing carbon monoxide,
carbon dioxide and hydrogen in the presence of a
Cu/ZnO/Al O catalyst [2]. Because of its indu2 3
strial importance, a great deal of research has been
carried out to understand the mechanism of thisreaction [3–23], with the aim of identifying ahighly active and selective catalyst for methanol
synthesis.
Although a satisfactory mechanism has not yet
been worked out, it is assumed that the primarysource of the carbon in methanol is CO [3–5],
20039-6028/99/$ – see front matter © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

and that formate is the pivotal intermediate formethanol synthesis [5,14]. The role of ZnO in thiscatalytic reaction has been the subject of longstanding debate. Early studies proposed that the
Cun+ induced by ZnO was the active site formethanol synthesis [6 ]. This suggestion still
receives some support [7–11]. On the other hand,
other studies support a model which assumes thatthe active site on the Cu/ZnO catalyst is metallic
Cu [12–16 ], since the activity is directly proportional to the surface area of copper. Recently,
attempts have been made to synthesize methanolfrom H and CO on clean Cu(100) and Cu(110)22single-crystal surfaces [17–21]. Methanol was synthesized in these studies, which offers a basis forstudies of this reaction on copper-based catalysts.
Evidence for the existence of the formate species
has been derived from both infra-red (IR) [22]and temperature-programmed desorption ( TPD)
spectra of a supported copper catalyst exposed tosynthesis gas [23]. Bowker et al. [23] demonstrated
that the coadsorption of hydrogen and carbon
dioxide on copper resulted in the formation offormate species. Millar et al. [5] further concluded
that the copper formate species, which is adsorbed
in the bridge form, is a precursor to methanol
production. The formate species is known to bereadily generated on copper from CO and H
22
under typical methanol synthesis conditions, andhas also been synthesized from CO /H on
2 2
Cu(100) and Cu(110) single-crystal surfaces[24,25]. Formate was concluded to be oriented
with its molecular plane perpendicular to the metal
surface [26 ], with the two oxygen atoms positioned
on top of two equivalent copper atoms. Theoretical
calculations also support this observation [27–29].
In methanol synthesis, several hydrogenation
steps, such as the hydrogenation of CO , formate
2
and further adsorbed intermediates, are involvedin the actual reaction process. To clarify the mechanistic details, considerable effort has been devoted
to identifying the intermediates in the reaction
route and to clarifying the rate-limiting step
[5,14,18–21]. However, possible intermediates
other than formate, such as dioxomethylene, formaldehyde and methoxy, have not been observed
directly by experimental methods. Burch et al. [14]indicated that dioxomethylene is a possible inter-91

mediate, and that the critical rate-limiting step inmethanol synthesis is the addition of the firsthydrogen atom to copper formate. Millar et al. [5]also support this conclusion. On the other hand,
Chorkendorff and co-workers [18,19] suggested
that the hydrogenation of dioxomethylene may be
the rate-limiting step. The hydrogenation of formate and the hydrogenation of methoxy are also
possible candidates for the rate-limiting step [19].
Since several hydrogenation reactions are involved,
and the lifetime of the intermediates may be short,
experimental observation is difficult in the actual
continuous reaction process. Theoretical researchshould play an important role in clarifying themechanism of this complicated surface reaction
process. However, to the best of our knowledge,
no full theoretical study has been reported on thissubject, although Kakumoto [11] discussed thereaction route based on a cluster model whichcontained just one or two copper atoms.
In this study, we examined the mechanism of
the hydrogenation of CO to methanol on a2
Cu(100) surface by the dipped adcluster model(DAM ) [30] combined with the ab initio Hartree–
Fock (HF ) and second-order Møller–Plesset(MP2) methods. The DAM has been successfully
applied to the chemisorption of oxygen on palladium and silver surfaces [31–35]. Recently, themechanisms of the epoxidation and complete oxidation of ethylene [36,37] and propylene [38,39]
on a silver surface were clarified using the DAM.
A comparative study of the epoxidation of ethylene
on copper, silver and gold surfaces has also been
carried out [40]. Section 2 gives an outline of thecomputational details. The overall reaction mechanism in methanol synthesis and the geometries andenergetics of the elementary steps are reported in
Sections 3 and 4, respectively. In Section 5, theadsorption of atomic hydrogen and formate, as
well as the coadsorption of hydrogen and CO , on2
a Cu(100) surface are discussed. Finally, we givethe conclusions from the present study in Section 6.

2. Computational details
A Cu (6,2) cluster, which contains six copper8
atoms in the first layer and two copper atoms in

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Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

the second layer, as shown in Fig. 1, was used tomodel the Cu(100) surface. The dipped adclustermodel (DAM ) [30] was used to include the effectsof the bulk metal, such as electron transfer between
the admolecule and the surface, and the image
force. The calculations were performed using thehighest-spin coupling model [30] and so oneelectron transfer from the bulk metal was assumed[30–32].
The Langmuir–Hinshelwood (LH ) mode,
which corresponds to the reaction between thecoadsorbed species on the surface, was adopted.
This is reasonable since hydrogen is dissociatively
adsorbed on the Cu(100) surface and the coadsorbed species is responsible for methanol formation [14,24]. The detailed reaction mechanism in
the hydrogenation of adsorbed CO to methanol2
was studied by choosing the appropriate reaction
coordinates of the bridge site. The chemisorptionof atomic hydrogen and formate as well as thecoadsorption of hydrogen and CO were also2
investigated, and the results were compared withavailable experimental and theoretical data.
The geometries of the reactants, products andintermediates were optimized at the HF level,

except for the CuMCu distance, which was fixedat its bulk lattice value of 2.556 Å. The geometriesof the transition states ( TSs) were calculated using
the force constant matrix at the HF level; namely,
the energy gradient was zero and the force constantmatrix had only one negative eigenvalue at the TS.
The electrostatic interaction energy between theadcluster and the bulk metal was estimated byimage force correction [31]. Electron correlations
were included by the MP2 method. The calculations were performed with the  94 software package [41].
The Gaussian basis set for the copper atom wasthe (3s2p5d)/[3s2p1d ] set and the argon core was
replaced by the effective core potential [42]. For
oxygen and carbon, we used the (9s5p)/[4s2p] setof Huzinaga–Dunning [43,44]. For hydrogen,(4s)/[2s] [44] was adopted in HF optimization
calculations. In MP2 calculations, the polarizationd function of a=1.154 and 0.60 [45] and thepolarization p function of a=1.1 [41] were added
to the oxygen, carbon and hydrogen basis sets,
respectively. Test calculations with the present
methodology on the gas-phase reactions relative
to the present system are shown in Table 1. The
calculated results are all in reasonably good
agreement with the experimental values.

3. The overall reaction mechanism in methanol
synthesis

Fig. 1. (a) Side view of the model adcluster used in this study.
Cluster atoms 1–6 are in the first layer, and 7 and 8 are in thesecond layer. (b) Top view of the adsorbed bridge (A), on-top(B) and hollow (C ) sites. The solid and dashed circles denotethe first and second layers, respectively.

The main purpose of the present study was tounderstand the mechanistic details of the hydrogenation of CO into methanol on a Cu(100)2surface. Since this is a very complicated process,we focused on clarifying the reaction intermediates,
the transition states and the energetics of theimportant hydrogenation reaction steps. We thendetermined the overall reaction mechanism as wellas the rate-limiting steps. The most importantresults and discussions are summarized in thissection, and the detailed geometries and energetics
of each elementary step are shown in the next
section.
The elementary reaction steps on the surface

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Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106
Table 1
Calculated and experimental properties for the gas-phase reactionsa
Reaction

H+HH
2
O+OO
2
Cu+HCuH

R (Å)e

D (kcal mol−1)
e

HF

MP2

Experimentalb

MP2

Experimentalb

0.731
1.207
1.587

0.736
1.238
1.535

0.741
1.2075
1.572

101.9
117.3
66.6c

103.3
118.0
63.0

15.9d

14.9e

H +CO CH OH+H O
2
2
3
2

a R — bond length; D — binding energy.
eeb Ref. [67].
c Calculated value of 44.3 kcal mol−1 relative to the Cu(2S)+H(2S) ground-state limit plus the energy difference of
22.3 kcal mol−1 [68] between Cu(2S) and Cu(2D ) states, since the experimental value [67] is relative to the Cu(2D )+H(2S) limit.
5/2
5/2
d Heat of reaction.
e Ref. [69].

can be summarized as follows:
H (g)2H(a)(1)
2
CO (g)CO (a)(2)
22
CO (a)+2H(a)HCOO(a)+H(a)(3)
2
HCOO(a)+H(a)H COO(a)(4)
2
H COO(a)+H(a)H CO(a)+OH(a)(5)
22
H CO(a)+H(a)H CO(a)(6)
23H CO(a)+H(a)CH OH(7)
3
3
OH(a)+H(a)H O(8)
2
Among these elementary reactions, steps (3)–(7)constitute the core steps in methanol synthesis,
and the overall reaction energetics are shown in
Fig. 2. The energy diagram shown in Fig. 2 iscomposed of the energetics of the elementary reaction steps; i.e., they are calculated separately. The
numbers of atoms in steps (3) and (4) are identical,
but different in the following steps, so that we put
the energy level of the reactant of step (5) to be
the same as that of the product of step (4), andsimilar procedure is done for the next steps (6)and (7), to give an overall energetic understandingof the reaction pathways. An illustration of thereaction mechanism in methanol synthesis proposed by our study is shown in Fig. 3.
Among the hydrogenation steps, the hydrogenation of adsorbed formate to adsorbed dioxomethylene, i.e., step (4), is the rate-limiting step, as shownin Fig. 2. The activation energy in this step iscalculated to be 23.0 kcal mol−1, which is higher
than that in the other hydrogenation steps. This
step is also endothermic by 17.1 kcal mol−1. This
result is consistent with the suggestion based on
experimental findings that the critical rate-limiting
step in methanol synthesis is the addition of thefirst hydrogen atom to adsorbed formate [5,14,20].
The high energy barrier and an unstable dioxomethylene intermediate account for the lower
activity of a clean copper surface as comparedwith a copper-based catalyst in practical methanol
synthesis. Dioxomethylene has been suggested to
be an intermediate in methanol synthesis [14,19],
but there is no direct experimental evidence toconfirm this point. Our optimization calculations
show that dioxomethylene is adsorbed on a
Cu(100) surface at the bridge site with its molecular plane perpendicular to the metal surface; i.e.,an adsorption geometry similar to that of formate
adsorbed at the surface.
Another high energy barrier (17 kcal mol−1) is
calculated for step (5), the hydrogenation ofadsorbed dioxomethylene to give formaldehyde,
while this step is exothermic by 35.7 kcal mol−1.
Therefore, step (5) may cooperate with step (4)to be rate-limiting, though the former seems
be easier than the latter. Experimentally,
Chorkendorff and co-workers [18,19] suggested
that the former step may be rate-limiting. On theother hand, the decomposition of dioxomethylene

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Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

Fig. 2. A summary of the energy diagram for the hydrogenation of CO to methanol on a Cu(100) surface. The geometries and2energies of each reaction step are shown in Figs. 4–8. Detailed explanations are given in the text.

Fig. 3. Proposed reaction mechanism of the hydrogenation of CO to methanol on a Cu(100) surface.
2

Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

into formate, i.e., the backward reaction, is alsofavorable: the energy barrier is 5.9 kcal mol−1 andthe reaction is exothermic by 17.1 kcal mol−1. We
can expect that dioxomethylene will decompose
into formate in the absence of coadsorbedhydrogen. Thus, step (5) is important for achieving
a high selectivity in methanol synthesis. It may be
more reasonable to say that the formate to formaldehyde reactions are the rate-limiting steps.
Compared with steps (4) and (5), steps (6) and(7) are both easy and rapid, leading to an overall
exothermic methanol synthesis.
Table 2 summarizes the calculated vibrationalmode with an imaginary frequency at the TSs
shown in Fig. 2 and in Figs. 4–8. The TSs havejust one negative eigenvalue of the Hessian, andthe reaction is mainly related to the reaction mode,as shown by the vibrational modes with largecoefficients in the eigenvector. All of these give
clear confirmation for the TSs clarified. The energy
level of the TSs shown in Fig. 2 is the mostimportant factor in determining the rate-limiting

Table 2Vibrational modes with imaginary frequencies at the TSs given
in Figs. 2, 4–8
TS structure

Eigenvalue

Mode

Eigenvector

TS1−0.057TS2−0.088TS3−0.089TS4−0.155TS5−0.122

H Mx stretchinga
H MC stretchingaCH x torsiona
OCH torsiona
H Mx stretchingb
H MC stretchingb
CH x torsionb
H xx torsionb
OCH torsionb
H MCu stretchingcl
H MOb stretchingc
O MC stretchingb
CMO stretchinga
CO Cu torsion
b 2
O CO torsionb a
H MC stretchingc
H CO torsionc
CMO stretching
H Mx stretchingd
H MO stretchingd
H xx torsiondOH x torsiond

0.464−0.847−0.198
0.135
0.494
0.425
0.712
−0.131−0.115−0.3070.915−0.100
0.117
0.143
0.139
0.906
−0.3330.119
0.269−0.902
0.220
0.248

95

step. The detailed geometries and energetics of theTSs are shown in the next section.
Our calculations show that chemisorbed CO− ,2formate, dioxomethylene, formaldehyde andmethoxy are the main intermediates in methanol
synthesis, and Eqs. (3)–(7) provide a reasonable
reaction route leading to methanol formation ona Cu(100) surface. Surface formate is readily
formed by the reaction of adsorbed atomic
hydrogen with coadsorbed CO , which exists as a2
bent anionic CO− species, as shown in Section 5.
2
About one electron is transferred from the metal
surface to the p1 orbital of CO , making the carbon
2very reactive. Adsorbed formate is easily synthesized from CO and H on a Cu(100) surface2
2[14,24,46 ], as has been shown experimentally.
Adsorbed formate has been confirmed to be areaction intermediate by IR [5,22] and TPD [23]experiments.
Dioxomethylene, formaldehyde and methoxy
have been suggested to be the adsorbed intermediates in surface reactions on copper surfaces by
a variety of surface science techniques.
Dioxomethylene has been suggested to be an intermediate in the conversion of formaldehyde into
formate on an oxidized Cu(110) surface based on
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy ( XPS ) and TPD[47]. The dissociation of methanol into methoxy
has been confirmed by TPD on clean and oxidized
Cu(110) [48] and by high-resolution electronenergy-loss spectroscopy (HREELS) on Cu(100)[49]. The adsorption of formaldehyde has been
observed on Cu(110) [48,49].
Chemisorbed CO− and formate have been2
reported to be the reaction intermediates by several
experimental studies [5,14,22–24,50]. The existence of an adsorbed methoxy intermediate has
also been reported by in situ IR studies [51,52].
However, there are no direct experimental reports
to confirm that dioxomethylene and formaldehyde
are intermediates. Our results show that theadsorbed formaldehyde intermediate is very active,
and can be easily hydrogenated into adsorbed
methoxy. Dioxomethylene is unstable comparedwith other intermediates. Further experimental
studies are needed to detect these adsorbed intermediates. Charge transfer is the most importantfeature in this catalytic process.

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Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

4. Geometries and energetics of the elementary
reaction steps
4.1. Reaction of coadsorbed hydrogen and CO−
2
As shown in Section 5.2, the coadsorption ofhydrogen and CO leads to a bent anionic CO−22
species on the surface. In coadsorbed CO− , the2transfer of one electron from the surface into thep1 orbital of CO causes a large frontier density
2
on the carbon atom, resulting in high reactivity
towards coadsorbed hydrogen and leading to theformation of the surface formate species, which isan important intermediate in methanol synthesis[5,14,22–24]. Formate is adsorbed at the shortbridge site on a Cu(100) surface, as shown aboveand based on other experimental and theoreticalstudies [26–29]. Fig. 4 shows the optimized geometries and relative energies for the transition state
and the intermediate for the reaction path fromcoadsorbed hydrogen and CO− into the adsorbed
2
formate species on a Cu(100) surface.
The reaction is initiated by the attack of theadsorbed hydrogen atom by the activated carbon
atom of the chemisorbed CO . The CO− inclines
2
2
towards the nearest-neighbor adsorbed hydrogento create an effective overlap to form a CMH sbond. The optimized geometries show that the
CMH bond distance decreases from 2.94 to 1.59 Å,and then to 1.09 Å in the reactant, TS and intermediate, respectively. Meanwhile, the CuMH distanceincreases from 1.80 to 1.94 Å, and then to 4.74 Å.
The changes in other geometric parameters are
small. The activation energy is calculated to be
12.3 kcal mol−1, and the reaction is exothermicby 40.5 kcal mol−1. In this reaction step, the net
charges of the adsorbates are calculated to be−0.76, −0.66 and −0.65, respectively, whichshows that the reaction process is anionic. An
experimental study on the synthesis of adsorbed
formate from hydrogen and CO on a Cu(100)2surface was reported by Taylor et al. [24], andthe activation energy was reported to be
13.3 kcal mol−1, which is in reasonably good
agreement with the present result.
4.2. Hydrogenation of adsorbed formate
When formate is formed on the surface, thereaction of coadsorbed formate and hydrogen into
dioxomethylene is expected. Fig. 5a shows thecoadsorption state at the closest short-bridge sites,
which acts as the reactant in this reaction step.
The coadsorption state has an adsorption energy
similar to that in Fig. 4c. The calculated optimized
geometries and relative energies of the transition
state and intermediate are shown in Fig. 5.
The reaction path is the attack of the carbon

Fig. 4. Optimized geometries and relative energies of the reactant (a), TS (b) and product (c) in the hydrogenation of adsorbed
CO− . Bond lengths are in Å and angles are in degrees.
2

Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

97

Fig. 5. Optimized geometries and relative energies of the reactant (a), TS (b) and product (c) in the hydrogenation of adsorbed formate.

atom of formate by hydrogen. In the process
leading to the TS, the formate inclines towards theadsorbed hydrogen while the adsorbed hydrogenmigrates towards the formate, which leads to interaction between the carbon and hydrogen atoms.
The CuMO distances in the reactant, TS andintermediate are 2.12, 1.98 and 1.94 Å, respectively. The CMO distance increases from 1.27 to
1.40 Å, and then to 1.42 Å, and the CMH distancedecreases from 2.96 to 1.15 Å, and then to 1.10 Å.
In the intermediate state, dioxomethylene has a
CMO distance of 1.42 Å and %OCO=113.9°,
which reflect saturated coordination of the carbon
atom. The CuMO distance is 1.94 Å, which issmaller than that (2.12 Å) in the reactant. Electrontransfer plays an important role in this step. The
net charges of the adsorbates in the reactant, TS
and intermediate states are −0.68, −0.93 and−0.96, respectively. On the other hand, no large
difference in the relative net charge was found on
the cluster side.
The energy barrier for this reaction step is23.0 kcal mol−1. The experimental activationenergy for the hydrogenation of formate wasreported to be 19.6 kcal mol−1 [53]. The adsorbed
dioxomethylene species is 17.1 kcal mol−1 lessstable than the coadsorbed formate and hydrogenspecies. Thus, the reaction leading to the formationof dioxomethylene is endothermic. A relatively
unstable adsorbed dioxomethylene intermediate on
the copper surface may favor further hydrogenation. On the other hand, dioxomethylene may
decompose into formate in the absence of coadsorbed atomic hydrogen as stated above; theenergy barrier for this decomposition is
5.9 kcal mol−1. The relatively large energy barrier
and the unstable intermediate strongly suggest an
unfavored reaction path, and a higher temperatureis needed to compensate for the energy loss. This
unfavored reaction step may explain the lower
activity of a clean copper surface in methanol
synthesis. Compared with other reaction steps
discussed below, the hydrogenation of formate has
the highest barrier and the largest endothermic
energy. Therefore, we conclude that this is therate-limiting step, as discussed in Section 3.
4.3. Hydrogenation of adsorbed dioxomethylene
There are two possible reaction pathways forthe hydrogenation of adsorbed dioxomethylene.
One is the attack of the oxygen atom of adsorbed
dioxomethylene by atomic hydrogen, leading to
the formation of adsorbed formaldehyde, and theother is attack of the carbon atom by atomic
hydrogen, leading to the formation of an adsorbed

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Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

bidentate CH O species. Since no stable adsorbed
3 2
CH O species was found on a Cu(100) surface in
3 2
our optimization calculation, the latter pathway
can be ruled out. Therefore, we studied the attackof the oxygen atom of adsorbed dioxomethylene
by atomic hydrogen.
To simulate a reasonable reaction path, thereaction mode is chosen at the Cu MCu MCu
12
3
side of the Cu cluster, as shown in Fig. 6. An
8adjacent on-top coadsorbed atomic hydrogenspecies is taken as the reactant, since coadsorption
with atomic hydrogen at the adjacent bridge sitedoes not give a stable minimum. Although coadsorption with hydrogen atoms at a next nearestneighbor bridge site may be another possibility, it
is not a suitable initial reactant due to the large
distance between hydrogen and dioxomethylene.
On-top atomic hydrogen is a possible candidate
for methanol synthesis, since it may exist under
perturbation by other coadsorbed species, or as aresult of migration from other adsorption sites[14,54]. In this reaction step, adsorbed hydrogenattacks one of the oxygen atoms of dioxomethylene, forming an HMO s bond. In the TS structure, although the interaction of the hydrogen
atom with the oxygen atom is dominant, theinteractions of the adsorbates with the surface aswell as that of the oxygen atom with the carbon
atom are also included (see Table 2). The CMObdistance is 1.44 Å, which is slightly longer thanthe CMO distance (1.41 Å). All of the distancesabetween the adsorbates and the surface in the TS
are longer than in the reactant state. The H MO
cbdistance is 1.54 Å, which reflects the formation ofa s bond. The energy barrier is calculated to be
17.0 kcal mol−1, which is smaller than that in thehydrogenation of adsorbed formate, as discussed
above.
The adsorbed formaldehyde and hydroxyl
group are the expected intermediates in this reaction path. The structure of this intermediate isshown in Fig. 6c. In the adsorbed intermediate
state, formaldehyde has a CMO distance of 1.35 Å,
which is comparable to that in the gas phase(1.21 Å). The carbon atom of formaldehyde at theadsorption state should be very reactive towards
other coadsorbed hydrogen, and further hydrogenation is expected to occur fairly easily.
The adsorbed formaldehyde prefers to occupy thebridge site to have stronger interaction with thesurface copper. However, due to repulsive interaction with the adjacent coadsorbed hydroxyl
group, the structure deviates from the bridge site.
The Cu MO distance is 1.95 Å, while the Cu M
3a2
O distance is 2.30 Å. In addition, the Cu MOa1bdistance of 1.92 Å is shorter than the Cu MO
2bdistance (2.08 Å). This reaction step is calculated
to be exothermic by 35.7 kcal mol−1.
Hydroxyl is a well-known radical that is formedin the oxidation of hydrogen and hydrocarbons
on the surfaces of transition metals. The disproportionation of two surface hydroxyl groups to produce water and an adsorbed oxygen atom on asilver surface has been discussed previously [55].
The present structure of the hydroxyl groupadsorbed on a copper surface is similar to that on

Fig. 6. Optimized geometries and relative energies of the reactant (a), TS (b) and product (c) in the hydrogenation of adsorbed
dioxomethylene.

Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

a silver surface produced in the oxidation of olefins[38,39]. However, the disproportionation reaction
seems less favorable on a copper surface due tothe presence of active adsorbed atomic hydrogenin this reaction process. The adsorbed hydroxyl
groups may be converted into water when they
react with adsorbed atomic hydrogen.
4.4. Hydrogenation of adsorbed formaldehyde andmethoxy
Fig. 7 shows the optimized geometries and relative energies for the hydrogenation of adsorbed
formaldehyde into methoxy along the bridge reaction coordinate. The stable coadsorption geometryis that in which formaldehyde is adsorbed at thebridge site, but with the CH fragment slightly
2
inclined towards the surface. The C–O-surface
angle is calculated to be 177.2°. The geometry of
the formaldehyde side is the same as that of thecoadsorbed hydroxyl species, as shown in Fig. 6c.
In the TS, the adsorbed formaldehyde species
inclines further towards the adsorbed hydrogen to
realize an effective interaction between carbon andhydrogen. The optimized geometries show that the
CMH bond distance decreases from 3.06 to 1.94 Å,and then to 1.09 Å in the reactant, TS and intermediate, respectively. The activation energy of thisstep is only 1.3 kcal mol−1. The small activation

99

energy is due to the activity of the unsaturated
carbon atom at the adsorption state, which has
high reactivity to form another CMH s bond. The
product of this reaction step is adsorbed methoxy,
which is 44.9 kcal mol−1 more stable than thereactant. Owing to the high activity of the adsorbed
formaldehyde intermediate, this reaction step proceeds very smoothly.
When methoxy is formed, it will undergo furtherhydrogenation to methanol, as shown in Fig. 8.
This step involves an H–O reaction mode. The
bonding interaction between hydrogen and oxygen
will lead to the formation of methanol, the final
product of this reaction process. A TS structure,
which corresponds to the formation of methanolfrom coadsorbed hydrogen and methoxy, is shownin Fig. 8b. In this TS, bonding interaction betweenhydrogen and oxygen is clear. From the reactant
to the TS, and then to the product, the OMHddistance decreases from 3.08 to 1.49 Å, and then
to 0.95 Å, and the CMO distance changes from1.40 to 1.42 Å, and then to 1.45 Å. Typical single
HMO and CMO s bonds are fully formed in the
product state. Meanwhile, the stronger H–O bonding interaction results in weak adsorbate–surface
interaction. The OMCu distance increases from2.05 to 2.16 Å, and then to 2.52 Å along thereaction coordinate, and adsorbed methanol tends
to desorb from the surface. This reaction step has

Fig. 7. Optimized geometries and relative energies of the reactant (a), TS (b) and product (c) in the hydrogenation of adsorbed
formaldehyde.

100Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

Fig. 8. Optimized geometries and relative energies of the reactant (a), TS (b) and product (c) in the hydrogenation of adsorbed
methoxy.

an activation energy of 14.6 kcal mol−1, and is
calculated to be endothermic by 11.4 kcal mol−1.

5. Chemisorption of the relevant adsorbates on a
Cu(100) surface
In this section, we report comparative studiesof the adsorption of hydrogen and formate atdifferent sites on a Cu(100) model cluster, and thecoadsorption of hydrogen and CO in the DAM
2and neutral cluster model, respectively. Although
the reaction mechanisms discussed above show
little dependence on the results presented here, theadsorptions of these molecules on metal surfaces
are of great importance for understanding of molecule–surface interactions and the surface catalytic
activities.
5.1. Chemisorption of atomic hydrogen and formate
It is well known that hydrogen is adsorbed
dissociatively on a Cu(100) surface [46,56,57], anddissociated atomic hydrogen is responsible formethanol synthesis [18,46,53]. The adsorptions ofatomic hydrogen in the bridge, on-top and hollow
sites on a Cu(100) surface were examined using

the Cu neutral cluster, and the results are com8
pared in Table 3. In the optimized geometries foratomic hydrogen adsorbed in the bridge, on-top
and hollow sites, hydrogen was calculated to be
1.64, 1.32 and 1.10 Å above the surface, and therelative adsorption energies were 46.4, 37.9 and38.6 kcal mol−1 based on MP2 calculations. The
calculated adsorption energy is small and isinsufficient to support the dissociation of H on
2
Cu(100), which does not agree with the experimental results. This may be due to the insufficiency ofthe neutral cluster model and failure to accountTable 3Calculated properties of hydrogen adsorbed at the bridge,
on-top and four-fold hollow sites on a Cu(100) surface
Adsorbed site

BridgeTop

Hollow

R M(Å)a
H surface
R M (Å)b
H Cu
E (kcal mol−1)c
ads

1.32
1.83
46.1

1.64
1.64
37.9

1.10
2.12
38.6

aR M
is the perpendicular distance from hydrogen to
H surface
the copper surface.
b R M is the distance from a hydrogen atom to the
H Cunearest copper atom.
c Adsorption energies are relative to hydrogen at infinite
separation.

Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

for surface relaxation or reorganization, the latter
may play an important role in hydrogen adsorption. Note that the dissociation of H on a noble
2
metal surface is still a theoretically challenging
subject, and further study is needed to understandthe dissociation mechanism in more detail.
Experimentally, atomic hydrogen may not be very
sensitive to the adsorption site in methanol synthesis since it may occur at higher coverage or under
perturbation by other coadsorbed species, andhydrogen can exhibit spillover among adsorption
sites [14]. The spillover of hydrogen on a catalytic
surface has been reported in practical catalytic
processes [54].
Copper formate is the pivotal intermediate inmethanol synthesis [5,14]. However, the structureof formate on a Cu(100) surface is controversial.
Both the short-bridge site with the oxygen lying
over the on-top site of the first-layer copper atoms[26 ] and the cross-bridge site with the oxygen lying
in adjacent hollow sites [58] have been reported
from extended X-ray absorption fine structure( EXAFS) studies. We compared the adsorption offormate species at different sites on the Cu(100)surface. Four adsorption sites, i.e., the short-bridge
site (Fig. 9a), the on-top site (Fig. 9b), the hollow
site (Fig. 9c) and the cross-bridge site ( Fig. 9d ),were investigated, and the results are summarizedin Table 4.
For formate adsorption on the Cu(100) surface,
the most stable adsorption occurs at the shortbridge site, which is consistent with previous theoretical [27–29] and experimental [26 ] results. The
optimized CMO distance is 1.27 Å and %OCO is125.3°, which agree well with the experimental
values of 1.25 Å [26 ] and 129±5° [59] and thelinear combination of atomic orbital-local density
functional (LCAO-LDF ) calculated values of
1.29 Å and 126° [29], respectively. The calculated
CuMO distance is 2.12 Å, which is slightly larger
than the value obtained from photoelectron
diffraction experiments (1.98±0.04 Å) [26 ].
Adsorption energies are calculated to be 71.0, 63.5,
62.8 and 55.2 kcal mol−1 for formate adsorbed at
the short-bridge, on-top, hollow and cross-bridge
sites, respectively. Formate adsorbed at the shortbridge site is calculated to be 15.8 kcal mol−1 morestable than that adsorbed at the cross-bridge site,101

which is comparable to the theoretical relative
energies of 9.9 kcal mol−1 [27], 8.8 kcal mol−1[28] and 20.3 kcal mol−1 [29], respectively. Notethat the adsorption energy was reported to bemuch different by different calculations [27–29],
and no experimental data are available, although
Taylor et al. [24] reported an estimated value ofaround 25 kcal mol−1. Since all of the computational models that are used today in theoreticalstudies of chemisorptions and reactions on solid
surfaces have some weaknesses, to assess the applicability of the different models it is important tomake comparative studies [60]. Taking this inmind, our conclusions in this paper for the adsorptions and reaction mechanisms are mainly basedon comparative results for the calculations on thesame model cluster.
The geometries of the formate species adsorbed
at different adsorption sites are very similar; theCMO distance is 1.27 Å and %OCO ranges from
123.3° to 125.3°. However, the CuMO distancevaries greatly. The formate at the short-bridge site
has the shortest CuMO distance and the largest
adsorption energy, while that at the cross-bridge
site has the longest CuMO distance and the leaststability. This means that adsorbate–surface interaction may be directly reflected by the adsorbate–surface distance for formate adsorption on a
Cu(100) surface. Mulliken populations of the formate species at different adsorption sites are allabout −0.53, which indicates a charge-transfer
chemisorption mechanism and an anionic formate
adsorption species. A similar charge-transfer chemisorption mechanism was reported for formate
on Cu(100) by Mehandru and Anderson [27], andfor formate on Ni(100) by Upton [61].
Table 4 also shows the calculated vibrationalfrequencies ( VF ) and the IR intensities of formate
at the most stable short-bridge site, in comparison
with the experimental data [24,62]. The calculation
is carried out analytically by determining thesecond derivatives of the energy with respect tothe mass-weighted coordinates at the resulting
optimized geometries; i.e., the normal methods
used in  94 [41]. Since HF calculations
usually give overestimations, the results shown in
Table 4 were obtained by multiplying the calculated values by 0.9, the average of the errors in

102

Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

Fig. 9. Optimized geometries and adsorbed energies of formate on a Cu(100) surface. (a) Short-bridge site, (b) on-top site, (c) fourfold hollow site and (d ) cross-bridge site.

Table 4
Calculated properties of formate species at different sites on a Cu(100) surface
Short-bridge

On-topHollow

Cross-bridge

Experimentala

CMH (Å)CMO (Å)R M (Å)bO Cu%OCO (°)
E (kcal mol−1)c
ads
Net charge

1.09
1.27
2.13
125.3
−71.0
−0.526

1.09
1.25
2.34
123.3
−63.5
−0.539

1.09
1.27
2.40
124.8
−62.8
−0.527

1.09
1.27
2.73
123.9
−55.2
−0.537–n(CH )dn (COO)sd(OCO)n (COO)ad(CH )
p(CH )n (OMCu)sn (OMCu)a2935 (205.1)
1290 (188.6)
722 (65.6)
1545 (27.5)1333 (0.5)
1062 (12.9)
253 (36.2)
225 (0.7)

1.25
1.98±0.04
129±5
–
–
2910
1330
760
1640
1377
1073
340

a From Refs. [24,26,59,62].
b R M is the distance from the oxygen atom to the nearest copper atom.
O Cu
c Adsorption energies are relative to HCOO at infinite separation and are calculated by MP2 method.
d Vibrational frequencies are in cm−1: n — stretching mode (s, symmetric; a, asymmetric); d — in-plane deformation; p — out-ofplane deformation. IR intensities are in parentheses (km mol−1). Experimental results are taken from Refs. [24,62].

Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

VF values by HF calculations. The calculated
vibrational frequencies and IR intensities, which
compare well with the experimental data, indicate
another important feature of formate on Cu(100).
All of the asymmetric modes have smaller intensities as a result of the symmetric adsorption
geometry, and the vibrational frequencies and the
IR intensities are a little different than those forformate adsorbed on a Zn/Cu(100) alloy surface[63].
5.2. Coadsorption of hydrogen and CO :2comparison of the DAM and neutral cluster model
Although CO is relatively unreactive on a clean2
Cu(100) surface, it shows high reactivity towards
coadsorbates [50]. It is generally accepted thatelectron donation into the antibonding orbital of
CO is the origin of its reactivity, and bent anionic2chemisorbed CO− is the precursor for formate
2
formation [24,64]. We examined the coadsorptionof hydrogen and CO on a Cu(100) surface using
2
the DAM and the neutral cluster model (CM ).
Fig. 10 shows the optimized coadsorption geometries and Table 5 shows the coadsorption energy
and Mulliken populations.
The DAM describes chemisorbed CO− on a2
copper surface. In the chemisorption state, aboutone (0.76) electron is transferred from the bulk
metal into the p1 orbital of CO , giving a bent
2anionic CO− species on the surface. The CMO
2and OMCu bond distances are calculated to be
1.25 and 2.15 Å, respectively. Note that the gas-103

phase CO has a CMO distance of 1.17 Å. The
2
coadsorption energy is calculated to be
17.4 kcal mol−1. Experimentally, the adsorptionenergy was reported to be 4.3 kcal mol−1 [65] forphysisorbed CO on a polycrystalline copper sur2
face, 6.7 kcal mol−1 [24] for physisorbed CO on
2
a clean Cu(100) surface, and 14.3 kcal mol−1 [64]for chemisorbed CO on a polycrystalline copper2
surface. No experimental data are available forcoadsorption species. Mulliken populations showthat the net charge on the adsorbed species is−0.76. This value is less than unity because ofcovalent interactions between the CO molecular2
orbitals and the copper 4s-3d orbitals. The charge
distribution of the metals is almost unchanged
compared with that of the free cluster. In theCO− adsorbate, electron transfer causes a large
2
frontier density (spin population) on carbon, while
the frontier densities on other atoms are almost
zero. This large frontier density on carbon meansthat the carbon becomes very reactive in theadsorption state and should be the active site
towards the reaction with other coadsorbates.
On the other hand, the Cu cluster model does8
not describe the coadsorption of hydrogen and
CO on a Cu(100) surface naturally. It is2
10.2 kcal mol−1 more unstable, and the geometryof the CO is almost the same as that in the gas
2phase. If we suppose the transfer of one electronfrom the cluster metals to CO , the chemisorbed
2
CO− structure is obtained, as shown in Fig. 10c,2which is similar to that in Fig. 10a calculated by
the DAM. However, this structure is calculated toFig. 10. Optimized geometries and coadsorbed energies of hydrogen and CO on a Cu(100) surface. (a) Is calculated by the dipped2
adcluster model (n=1); (b) and (c) are calculated by the neutral cluster model (n=0). Detailed explanations are given in the text.

104

Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

Table 5
Coadsorbed energies, Mulliken populations and frontier densities (spin populations) of coadsorbed CO and hydrogen on a Cu(100)2surface. The geometries are shown in Fig. 10

E (kcal mol−1)aads
Mulliken population
Cu
1
Cu
2
Cu
3
Cu
4
Cu
5
Cu
6
Cu
7
Cu
8
C
O
a
O
b
H
a
H
b
Adsorbateb

Free phase

DAM

CM

0.0

−17.4

+10.2

+33.8

−0.006−0.0770.180−0.006−0.0770.180−0.271−0.2040.114−0.344−0.344−0.067−0.119
−0.76

0.128
0.095
−0.0430.128
0.095−0.043−0.1510.061
0.318−0.147−0.147−0.069−0.106−0.199

0.334
0.008
0.266
0.334
0.008
0.266
−0.356−0.0780.164−0.354−0.354−0.087−0.152−0.783

0.045
0.016
0.045
0.045
0.016
0.045
−0.105−0.1050.313−0.157−0.1570.0
0.0
0.0

Frontier density
Cu
1
Cu
2
Cu
3
Cu
4
Cu
5
Cu
6
Cu
7
Cu
8
C
O
a
O
b
H
a
H
b

−0.052+0.030+0.096−0.052+0.030+0.096+0.079−0.031+0.697+0.091+0.091+0.006−0.080+0.095−0.444−0.238+0.095−0.444−0.238−0.098+0.164+0.725+0.071+0.071+0.010+0.229a E =E(Cu cluster–adsorbate)−E(Cu cluster)−E(H )−E(CO ).
ads
8
8
2(g)
2(g)
b Adsorbate: total net charge of the adsorbates.

be 33.8 kcal mol−1 more unstable, and the net
charge and the frontier density of the cluster metals
are quite large. The cluster is then quite unstable
due to the large polarization, which explains thelarge negative adsorption energy for the chemisorbed CO−on the neutral cluster.
2
The above comparative calculations show thatthe cluster model is insufficient for describing thecoadsorption and reaction of H and CO on metal
2
2
surfaces, since the effect of electron transfer fromthe bulk metal to the adsorbates cannot be adequately described and a positive adsorption energy
can not be obtained. A similar situation was also

observed in the adsorption of oxygen on a silver
surface: a negative adsorption energy was reported
even with an Ag cluster [66 ], while the DAM
24gave a reasonable adsorption energy [33–35].
Thus, the DAM is essential for theoretical studies
of surface reactions in which electron transfer fromthe bulk metal to adsorbates is important.

6. Conclusion
In this study, we examined the mechanism of
the hydrogenation of CO to methanol on a2

Z.-M. Hu et al. / Surface Science 442 (1999) 90–106

Cu(100) surface. We performed both ab initio HF
and MP2 calculations using the dipped adclustermodel (DAM ), which takes into account the interaction between the bulk metal and admolecules byconsidering the electron transfer and image force
between them.
The most important results are shown in
Section 3, in which the reaction route and energetics of the hydrogenation of CO to methanol2
on a Cu(100) are presented and discussed. The
process involves five successive hydrogenation
steps, as shown in Figs. 2 and 3. The coadsorptionof hydrogen and chemisorbed CO− was success2
fully described by the DAM, but not by the neutralcluster model. In the chemisorption state, thetransfer of one electron from the bulk metal into
the p1 orbital of CO leads to a bent anionic2
CO− species at the surface whose carbon atom is
2highly activated, and the reaction of adsorbed
atomic hydrogen with coadsorbed CO− readily2leads to surface formate.
Formate is adsorbed at the short-bridge sitewith its molecular plane perpendicular to the metal
surface. The calculated CuMO distance is 2.12 Å,
the CMO distance is 1.27 Å and %OCO is 125.3°.
This is a stable intermediate in this reaction process. The adsorbed formate reacts with a coadsorbed atomic hydrogen to form surface dioxomethylene, which is the key intermediate in thisseries of surface reactions. The reaction ofadsorbed dioxomethylene with adsorbed atomic
hydrogen leads to surface formaldehyde. The activation energy is 17.0 kcal mol−1, and the reaction
is exothermic by 35.7 kcal mol−1. These two steps,i.e., from formate to formaldehyde, constitute therate-limiting step of this reaction.
Dioxomethylene is an unstable intermediate on
the Cu(100) surface, but formaldehyde andmethoxy intermediates are quite stable. The
adsorbed formaldehyde intermediate is highly
reactive towards coadsorbed atomic hydrogen, andits hydrogenation into adsorbed methoxy occurs
readily. The resulting adsorbed methoxy undergoes
further hydrogenation into methanol.
Our results indicate that chemisorbed CO− ,2formate, dioxomethylene, formaldehyde andmethoxy are the main intermediates in methanol
synthesis. The hydrogenation of adsorbed formate

105

to adsorbed dioxomethylene has the highest energy
barrier of 23.0 kcal mol−1, and is endothermic by
17.1 kcal mol−1. The DAM is essential for thetheoretical study of the chemisorption and reaction
mechanism of this surface process.

Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Dr J. Nakamura at the
University of Tsukuba. Some calculations were
performed using the computers at the Institute for
Molecular Science. Part of this study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Researchfrom the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science,and Culture, and by a grant from the Kyoto
University VBL project.

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