The methylation of ethene, propene, and t-2-butene by methanol over the acidic microporous H-ZSM-5 catalyst has been investigated by a range of computational methods. Density functional theory (DFT) with periodic boundary conditions (PBE functional) fails to describe the experimentally determined decrease of apparent energy barriers with the alkene size due to inadequate description of dispersion forces. Adding a damped dispersion term expressed as a parametrized sum over atom pair C(6) contributions leads to uniformly underestimated barriers due to self-interaction errors. A hybrid MP2:DFT scheme is presented that combines MP2 energy calculations on a series of cluster models of increasing size with periodic DFT calculations, which allows extrapolation to the periodic MP2 limit. Additionally, errors caused by the use of finite basis sets, contributions of higher order correlation effects, zero-point vibrational energy, and thermal contributions to the enthalpy were evaluated and added to the "periodic" MP2 estimate. This multistep approach leads to enthalpy barriers at 623 K of 104, 77, and 48 kJ/mol for ethene, propene, and t-2-butene, respectively, which deviate from the experimentally measured values by 0, +13, and +8 kJ/mol. Hence, enthalpy barriers can be calculated with near chemical accuracy, which constitutes significant progress in the quantum chemical modeling of reactions in heterogeneous catalysis in general and microporous zeolites in particular.

We investigate possible mechanisms of oxidative dehydrogenation of propane using density functional theory. Monomeric vanadium oxide species supported on silica are modeled by vanadyl-substituted silsesquioxane. Similarly to other catalysts with transition metal oxo bonds, the initial C-H bond activation step is hydrogen abstraction by the vanadyl (OdV V ) group yielding a diradical intermediate in which a propyl radical is bound to a HO-V IV site. This is followed by a propyl rebound mechanism yielding alkoxide or alcohol attached to a V III (OSi) 3 surface site from which propene can be formed. Propene is also directly obtained by a second hydrogen abstraction from the diradical intermediate. Desorption of propyl radicals leads to a stationary concentration of propyl in the gas phase and leaves reduced HO-V IV sites on the surface. Due to fast reoxidation their concentration is much smaller than the concentration of OdV V sites. Therefore the rate of propene formation after readsorption on OdV V sites is much larger than the rate of isopropyl alcohol (or propene) formation after readsorption on HO-V IV sites. Generation of surface propyl radicals by the first hydrogen abstraction becomes rate limiting. We predict that at 750 K the apparent activation energy is 123 ( 5 kJ/mol and the rate constant is about 0.26 s -1 , in close agreement with experiments. The first hydrogen abstraction occurs exclusively on OdV V sites, while the second hydrogen abstraction can also occur on V-O-Si bridging oxygen sites.

A theoretical study of the alkylation reaction of toluene with methanol catalyzed by the acidic Mordenite (Si/Al = 23) is reported. Cluster DFT as well as periodical structure DFT calculations have been performed. Full reaction energy diagrams of the elementary reaction steps that lead to the formation of the three xylene isomers are given. The use of periodical structure calculations allows one to account for zeolite framework electrostatic contributions and steric constraints that take place in zeolitic catalysts. Especially the steric constraint energy contribution has a significant effect on the energies and bond formation paths. The activation energy barrier of p-xylene formation is found to be approximately 20 kJ/mol lower than the corresponding values for the formation of its isomers. Computed host-guest binding energies according to the DFT method need a correction due to the absence of the dispersive interaction with the zeolite wall. Apparent activation energies obtained with this correction are in good agreement with experimental data.