Structural, magnetic and adsorption properties of Ni n (n = 2−16, 21, 55) clusters have been investigated based on density funciontal theory (DFT) with the spin polarized generalized gradient approximation, using the Perdew−Burke−Ernzerhof functional. The most stable isomers have been selected to study the adsorption of methane CH 4 and methyl CH 3 . It is found that the CH 4 molecule adsorbs on the top site for all clusters considered. The most selective Ni n clusters are the tetrahedron (n = 4) and icosahedral clusters due to highcoordinated edge atoms (n = 13, 21, and 55). For CH 3 , stronger adsorption tendencies were found with similar patterns. Our results show that clusters with n = 6, 10, and 13 with complete atomic shells are relatively more stable. Besides, they perform the lowest adsorption for CH 3 , indicating that they possess such a desirable property of a higher carbon poisoning resistance, than for the rest of the clusters. This result can be understood in terms of the electronic stability and localization of the frontier molecular orbitals.
■ INTRODUCTIONSmall clusters and nanoparticles have been widely studied in the past few years due to their high surface to volume ratio and enhanced reactivity properties compared with their bulk counterparts. 1 For example, gold nanoparticles are active catalyts although gold in the bulk is practically inert. 2,3 In catalytic reactions, they usually increase the selectivity and bond dissociation steps since they have more edge sites and lowcoordinated atoms. 4 Although in some reactions the presence of edge sites on the surface of nanoparticles can reduce the specific catalytic activity, 5 they are useful for different reactions, such as decomposition of hydrocarbons and alcohols, which can serve as important hydrogen sources. 6,7 Recently, much attention has been paid to the hydrogen production relating to the fuel cell technology. 8 In practice, hydrogen is produced from natural gas via steam reforming of methane, a process highly endothermic and very expensive, due to the high heat demand. 9 Among a wide range of heterogeneous catalyst, noble metal catalysts show higher activity and stability for this reaction, but the prohibitive cost and scarce resources makes their use very limited. On the other hand, Ni-based are promising catalysts in terms of cost and outstanding activity compared with noble-metals. However, the major problem of Ni-based systems is the strongly bonded carbon deposition on the catalyst surface which can deactivate the catalyst reducing its stability. 10 In a previous work, 11 we have shown that small Rh clusters possess an excellent selectivity to catalytically adsorb and dissociate the acid rain precursor N 2 O molecule. Furthermore, in the limit of going to arbitrary large clusters, it was interesting to compare this effect with that of a flat (111) slab of same metal, which happened to be provided with a much more smaller selectivity as the corresponding to small clusters. The problem, however, appears when we begin to consider cl...