Theoretical study of CO and O2 adsorption and CO oxidation on linear-shape gold molecules (LGMn) (n=2, 4, 8, 16, and 24)

Density functional theory is used to study the effect of increase of the number of Au atom in the adsorption of CO and O2 as well as CO oxidation on anionic, neutral, and cationic Linear-shape Gold Molecules (LGMn) (n=2, 4, 8, 16, and 24). The more the number of Au atom increases, the more the adsorption energies of CO lower and larger in the cationic and anionic LGMnCO complexes, respectively. In contrast, the adsorption energies of both CO and O2 on neutral LGMn exhibit approximately constant values. There are little differences of both adsorption energies and net charge of CO and O2 on the number of Au atom in LGM regardless of each charge state. This indicates that the charge state of LGM plays a less important role for the adsorption of CO and O2 with increase of the number of Au atom in LGM. The trend of the overall activation energies of reaction pathway is switched between LGM4−1 and LGM8−1 with increase of the number of Au atom in LGM, and OC-OO intermediate of the initial state in LGMn−1 (n=8, 16, and 24) are unstable compared to the separated reactants (LGMn, CO, O2). These are caused by the values of charge of O2 of OC-OO intermediate.