Catalytic hydrogenation of acetylene on Ni(111) by surface-bound H and bulk H

The reactions of hydrogen atoms adsorbed on a Ni(111) surface (surface-bound H) and hydrogen atoms just below the surface (bulk H) with coadsorbed acetylene are probed under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. Bulk H is observed to react with acetylene upon emerging onto the surface at 180 K. Gas-phase hydrogenation products, ethylene and ethane, are produced as well as an adsorbed species, ethylidyne. Ethylidyne is identified by high-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy. Surface-bound H reacts with adsorbed acetylene above 250 K to produce a single product, adsorbed ethylidyne. No gas-phase hydrogenation products, such as ethylene or ethane, are observed. The reaction of surface-bound H is extremely slow, with a rate constant determined from measurements of the initial reaction rate to be in the range of 10-5−10-3 (ML s)-1 for a temperature range of 250−280 K. The activation energy for the rate-determining step, which is shown to be the addition of the first surface-bound H to acetylene to form an adsorbed vinyl species, increases from 9 to 17 kcal/mol as the total coverage decreases from 0.92 to 0.74 ML. The reaction rate cannot be described by a simple first-order dependence on the coverage of either reactant, indicating the presence of strong interactions between reactants. Measurements of the equilibrium constant reveal strong interactions between the reactant surface H and the product ethylidyne, possibly resulting in island formation. Mechanisms for the formation of ethylidyne by the reactions of both surface-bound and bulk H are proposed, as well as mechanisms for the formation of ethylene and ethane by bulk H. The different product distributions resulting from the reaction of acetylene with the two forms of hydrogen are discussed in terms of the large energy difference between bulk and surface-bound H