Evidence for H₂-Induced Ductility in a Pt/Al₂O₃ Catalyst

Focusing on a highly dispersed 5 wt % Pt/Al2O3 catalyst for industrial hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reactions, we employ inelastic neutron scattering (INS) spectroscopy to obtain the vibrational fingerprint of hydrogenous species formed under different H2 equilibrium pressure temperature. The INS profiles are interpreted basis systematic DFT simulations 26 PtxHy/?-Al2O3 models, indicating that spectra unique model morphology, size (x), H-coverage (y), typology Pt–H species. We fit experimental spectrum measured higher conditions with linear combination simulated spectra. find 47% can be ascribed Pt55Hy/?-Al2O3 clusters completely solvated by H atoms (y = 81 91) in weak interaction support, followed disordered Pt34H54/?-Al2O3 (36%) smaller Pt13H32/?-Al2O3 one (18%). These results good agreement particle distribution previously determined TEM confirmed XAS. A second collected lower exhibits typical features less hydrogenated PtxHy models stronger ?-Al2O3 as well bands associated formation ?OH at support H-spillover. Overall, our study reveals relevance combined analysis quantify versatile atomic scale’s properties terms cluster size, species, cluster/support depending H-coverage, providing important insights about their behavior conditions.