Palladium, electronic structure

This review aims to present an account of the catalytic properties of palladium and nickel hydrides as compared with the metals themselves (or their a-phase solid solutions with hydrogen). The palladium or nickel alloys with the group lb metals, known to form /8-phase hydrides, will be included. Any attempts at commenting on the conclusions derived from experimental work by invoking the electronic structure of the systems studied will of necessity be limited by our as yet inadequate knowledge concerning the electronic structure of the singular alloys, which the hydrides undoubtedly are. 

The screened proton model of nickel or palladium hydrides and Switendick s concept of the electronic structure do not constitute a single approach sufficient to explain the observed facts. In this review, however, such a model will be used as the basis for further discussions. It allows for the explanation and general interpretation of the observed change of catalytic activity of the metals, when transformed into their respective hydrides. 

In the electron transfer theories discussed so far, the metal has been treated as a structureless donor or acceptor of electrons—its electronic structure has not been considered. Mathematically, this view is expressed in the wide band approximation, in which A is considered as independent of the electronic energy e. For the. sp-metals, which near the Fermi level have just a wide, stmctureless band composed of. s- and p-states, this approximation is justified. However, these metals are generally bad catalysts for example, the hydrogen oxidation reaction proceeds very slowly on all. sp-metals, but rapidly on transition metals such as platinum and palladium [Trasatti, 1977]. Therefore, a theory of electrocatalysis must abandon the wide band approximation, and take account of the details of the electronic structure of the metal near the Fermi level [Santos and Schmickler, 2007a, b, c Santos and Schmickler, 2006]. 

Examples of STS that are related to catalysis include the work of Goodman and co-workers,18 19 who have studied the electronic structure of palladium and gold nanoparticles on Ti02 as a function of nanoparticle size using I V curves... 

There are three kinds of electronic structures that may be expected for the octahedral complexes MXfl of the iron-group transition elements (and also for those of the palladium and platinum groups). -... 

In a sense the tr-allyl compounds of the transition metals can be regarded as the simplest of the sandwich molecules. Bis(jr-allyl)nickel, the best known of such complexes, has been shown by x-ray crystallography (104,105) to have a staggered arrangement of tr-allyl moieties and hence a C2h molecular conformation. The electronic structure of the ground state of bis(jr-allyl)nickel has been investigated by both semiempirical (47) and ab initio (274,275) methods, and a semiempirical computation has been performed on bis(7r-allyl)palladium (47). 

Active sites present in palladium-based catalysts, which promote the alternating insertion of coordinating comonomers, ethylene to the acyl Pd-C(O) bond and carbon monoxide to the alkyl Pd-CH2 bond, appear to be cationic Pd(II) species with a square planar, formally d° 8-electron structure, [L2(M)Pd(II)—P ]+, accompanied with weakly coordinating counter-anions [478 180,484],... 

Palladium(0)-catalysed coupling reactions of haloarenes with alkenes, leading to carbon-carbon bond formation between unsaturated species containing sp2-hybridised carbon atoms, follow a similar mechanistic scheme as already stated, the general features of the catalytic cycle involve an oxidative addition-alkene insertion-reductive elimination sequence. The reaction is initiated by the oxidative addition of electrophile to the zero-valent metal [86], The most widely used are diverse Pd(0) complexes, usually with weak donor ligands such as tertiary phosphines. A coordinatively unsaturated Pd(0) complex with a formally d° 14-electron structure has meanwhile been proven to be a catalytically active species. This complex is most often generated in situ [87-91],... 

The fact that the susceptibility is proportional to the second order of the number of unpaired electrons explains the steep slope of the NO curves in Figure 8. This shows again that the surface has quite a different electron structure from that of the bulk. The NO is sorbed only on the surface, since there is no evidence that it is able to enter the crystal lattice of palladium. As we have indicated, the... 

Tungsten carbide — WC, belongs to a class of Group IV B-VIB transition metal carbides and nitrides, often referred to as interstitial alloys, in which the carbon and nitrogen atoms occupy the interstitial lattice positions of the metal [i]. These compounds possess properties known from group VIII B precious metals like platinum and palladium [ii]. Thus, they show remarkable catalytic activities, attributed to a distinct electronic structure induced by the presence of carbon or nitrogen in the metal lattice. Tungsten carbide resembles platinum in its electrocatalytic oxidation activity (- electrocatalysis) and is therefore often considered as an inexpensive anode electrocatalyst for fuel cell [iii] and -> biofuel cell [iv] application. 

In decomposition reactions of dimethyl-metal complexes of palladium(II) and nickel (II) one finds the formation of only traces of methane [49] which may also attributed to an a-elimination process. In regard to the valence state, note that, formally, the alkylidene ligand is considered as a neutral ligand and therefore, in the tantalum-alkylidene complex in Fig. 4.29, tantalum is trivalent. The electronic structure of the alkylidene is of course reminiscent of the corresponding oxide CpTa(Cl)20, which we would definitely call pentavalent. All that matters is that there should be a sufficient number of electrons for the multiple bonds which we draw. 

However, this assumption is not necessarily justified. Even for a well-faceted nanoparticle there are a number of nonequivalent adsorption sites. For example, in addition to the low-index facets, the palladium nanoparticle exhibits edges and interface sites as well as defects (steps, kinks) that are not present on a Pd(l 1 1) or Pd(lOO) surface. The overall catalytic performance will depend on the contributions of the various sites, and the activities of these sites may differ strongly from each other. Of course, one can argue that stepped/kinked high-index single-crystal surfaces (Fig. 2) would be better models (64,65), but this approach still does not mimic the complex situation on a metal nanoparticle. For example, the diffusion-coupled interplay of molecules adsorbed on different facets of a nanoparticle (66) or the size-dependent electronic structure of a metal nanoparticle cannot be represented by a single crystal with dimensions of centimeters (67). It is also shown below that some properties are merely determined by the finite size or volume of nanoparticles (68). Consequently, the properties of a metal nanoparticle are not simply a superposition of the properties of its individual surface facets. 

In dichloromethane the dipalladium complex exhibits a ferrocenyl-based reversible oxidation (E° = -t- 0.62 V) and a palladium-centered irreversible oxidation ( p = -t-1.33 V) [166]. Under the same experimental conditions, the 4-ferrocenyl-dibenzylideneacetone ligand displays reversible one-electron oxidation at E° = + 0.64 V, thereby indicating that the complexation by palladium atoms does not appreciably perturb its electronic structure. 

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