Mechanistic understanding of hydrogenation of acetaldehyde on Au(111): A DFT investigation

This paper describes the reaction pathways for hydrogenation of acetaldehyde on atomic hydrogen pre-adsorbed Au(111) employing density functional theory (DFT) calculations. All the surface species involved in the reaction scheme have low diffusion barriers, suggesting that the rearrangement and movement of these species on the surface are facile under reaction condition. The hydroxyethyl is proposed to be the intermediate for the hydrogenation of acetaldehyde, and the activation energy for its formation is 0.37 eV. Additionally, the coupling reaction of hydroxyethyl and acetaldehyde – resulting in the formation of the ethylidene ethylene glycol (CH3C⁎HOCH(CH3)OH) species – also readily occurs at the reaction condition. Two-dimensional (2-D) polyacetaldehyde ((CH3CHO)2) can be easily hydrogenated to ethylidene ethylene glycol or ethoxy hemiacetal (CH3CH2OCH(CH3)O⁎); the latter can be converted to ethanol and acetaldehyde via further hydrogenation. As the hydrogenation products of ethylidene ethylene glycol and ethoxy hemiacetal, ethoxyethanol (CH3CH2OCH(CH3)OH) can be deeply hydrogenated to hydroxyethyl and ethanol. Our calculations also suggest that the formation of an ethoxyl intermediate is not likely, which agrees with the experimental observation that no deuterated acetaldehydes have been detected in isotopic measurements.