Abstract
To account for thermal and entropic effects caused by the dynamics of the motion of the reaction intermediates, ethanol adsorption on the Bronsted acid site of the H-ZSM-5 catalyst has been studied at different temperatures and ethanol loadings using ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations, infrared (IR) spectroscopy, and calorimetric measurements. At low temperatures (T ≤ 400 K) and ethanol loading, a single ethanol molecule adsorbed in H-ZSM-5 forms a Zundel-like structure where the proton is equally shared between the oxygen of the zeolite and the oxygen of the alcohol. At higher ethanol loading, a second ethanol molecule helps to stabilize the protonated ethanol at all temperatures by acting as a solvating agent. The vibrational density of states (VDOS), as calculated from the AIMD simulations, are in excellent agreement with measured IR spectra for C2H5OH, C2H5OD, and C2D5OH isotopomers and support the existence of both monomers and dimers. A quasi-harmonic approximation (QHA), applied to the...
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