Determining the storage, availability and reactivity of NH3 within Cu-Chabazite-based Ammonia Selective Catalytic Reduction systems.

Three different types of NH3 species can be simultaneously present on Cu(2+)-exchanged CHA-type zeolites, commonly used in Ammonia Selective Catalytic Reduction (NH3-SCR) systems. These include ammonium ions (NH4(+)), formed on the Brønsted acid sites, [Cu(NH3)4](2+) complexes, resulting from NH3 coordination with the Cu(2+) Lewis sites, and NH3 adsorbed on extra-framework Al (EFAl) species, in contrast to the only two reacting NH3 species recently reported on Cu-SSZ-13 zeolite. The NH4(+) ions react very slowly in comparison to NH3 coordinated to Cu(2+) ions and are likely to contribute little to the standard NH3-SCR process, with the Brønsted groups acting primarily as NH3 storage sites. The availability/reactivity of NH4(+) ions can be however, notably improved by submitting the zeolite to repeated exchanges with Cu(2+), accompanied by a remarkable enhancement in the low temperature activity. Moreover, the presence of EFAl species could also have a positive influence on the reaction rate of the available NH4(+) ions. These results have important implications for NH3 storage and availability in Cu-Chabazite-based NH3-SCR systems.

Accurate spin-orbit and spin-other-orbit contributions to the g-tensor for transition metal containing systems.

In this paper an overview is presented of several approximations within Density Functional Theory (DFT) to calculate g-tensors in transition metal containing systems and a new accurate description of the spin-other-orbit contribution for high spin systems is suggested. Various implementations in a broad variety of software packages (ORCA, ADF, Gaussian, CP2K, GIPAW and BAND) are critically assessed on various aspects including (i) non-relativistic versus relativistic Hamiltonians, (ii) spin-orbit coupling contributions and (iii) the gauge. Particular attention is given to the level of accuracy that can be achieved for codes that allow g-tensor calculations under periodic boundary conditions, as these are ideally suited to efficiently describe extended condensed-phase systems containing transition metals. In periodic codes like CP2K and GIPAW, the g-tensor calculation schemes currently suffer from an incorrect treatment of the exchange spin-orbit interaction and a deficient description of the spin-other-orbit term. In this paper a protocol is proposed, making the predictions of the exchange part to the g-tensor shift more plausible. Focus is also put on the influence of the spin-other-orbit interaction which becomes of higher importance for high-spin systems. In a revisited derivation of the various terms arising from the two-electron spin-orbit and spin-other-orbit interaction (SOO), new insight has been obtained revealing amongst other issues new terms for the SOO contribution. The periodic CP2K code has been adapted in view of this new development. One of the objectives of this study is indeed a serious enhancement of the performance of periodic codes in predicting g-tensors in transition metal containing systems at the same level of accuracy as the most advanced but time consuming spin-orbit mean-field approach. The methods are first applied on rhodium carbide but afterwards extended to a broad test set of molecules containing transition metals from the fourth, fifth and sixth row of the periodic table. The set contains doublets as well as high-spin molecules.

Assessment of periodic and cluster-in-vacuo models for first principles calculation of EPR parameters of paramagnetic defects in crystals: Rh2+ defects in NaCl as case study.

In order to find a reliable and efficient calculation scheme for electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopic parameters for transition metal complexes in ionic solids from first principles, periodic and finite cluster-in-vacuo density functional theory (DFT) simulations are performed for g tensors, ligand hyperfine tensors (A), and quadrupole tensors (Q) for Rh(2+)-related centers in NaCl. EPR experiments on NaCl:Rh single crystals identified three Rh(2+) monomer centers, only differing in the number of charge compensating vacancies in their local environment, and one dimer center. Periodic and cluster calculations, both based on periodically optimized structures, are able to reproduce experimentally observed trends in the ligand A and Q tensors and render very satisfactory numerical agreement with experiment. Taking also computation time into account as a criterion, a full periodic approach emerges as most appropriate for these parameters.The g tensor calculations, on the other hand, prove to be insufficiently accurate for model assessment. The calculations also reveal parameters of the complexes which are not directly accessible through experiments, in particular related to their geometry.