Semiempirical methods for prediction of thermochemical properties of adsorbed oxygenates are developed. Periodic density functional theory calculations are used to study the relative stability of ethanol, ethylene glycol, isopropyl alcohol, and glycerol dehydrogenation intermediates on Pt(111). For ethylene glycol dehydrogenation intermediates, it is found that the thermodynamically favored intermediates at each level of dehydrogenation are as follows: HOCH 2 CHOH, HOCHCHOH, HOCHCOH, HOCCOH ≈ HOCHCO, HOCCO, OCCO. Structural and energetic patterns emerge from these C 2 H x O 2 adsorption calculations that lead to the formation of group additive properties for thermochemical property prediction of oxygenates on Pt(111). Finally, linear scaling relationships of atomic binding energy are used to predict the binding energy of the C 2 H x O 2 species on the Ni(111) surface and Ni-Pt-Pt(111) bimetallic surface. It is shown that the linear scaling relationships can accurately predict the binding energy of larger oxygenates as well as of oxygenates on bimetallic catalysts. Corrections for ring strain and weak oxygen-metal and hydrogen-bonding interactions are added to increase the accuracy of group additivity and linear scaling relationships.

We report for the first time results of a systematic density functional theory (DFT) study of the water-gas shift (WGS) reaction and coke formation pathways on Ni(111) and Ni(211) surfaces, consisting of 21 elementary-like steps and 12 surface species. Brønsted–Evans–Polanyi correlations are proposed for dehydrogenation and C–O bond breaking reactions on flat and stepped surfaces. The DFT results suggest that the flat surface is slightly more active for the WGS reaction, which occurs mainly via the carboxyl pathway with the CO* + OH* ⇌ COOH*+* as the rate determining step. On the stepped surface, beyond the carboxyl pathway, the DFT energetics indicates that a parallel route via formate and formyl intermediates is favored. Ni(111) has a much lower activity for C–O bond breaking, and thus, flat surfaces are less susceptible to deactivation by coke.

5,10-Bis(2',6'-dibromophenyl)porphyrins bearing various substituents at the 10 and 20 positions were demonstrated to be versatile synthons for modular construction of chiral porphyrins via palladium-catalyzed amidation reactions with chiral amides. The quadruple carbon-nitrogen bond formation reactions were accomplished in high yields with different chiral amide building blocks under mild conditions, forming a family of D2-symmetric chiral porphyrins. Cobalt(II) complexes of these chiral porphyrins were prepared in high yields and shown to be active catalysts for highly enantioselective and diastereoselective cyclopropanation under a practical one-pot protocol (alkenes as limiting reagents and no slow addition of diazo reagents).