Intrinsic activation barriers and coadsorption effects for reactions on metal surfaces: unified formalism within the UBI-QEP approach

We present a unified formulation of the unity bond index-quadratic exponential potential method (UBI-QEP, formerly known as the BOC-MP method) of determining metal surface reaction energetics. We give a unified treatment of enthalpies and intrinsic activation barriers for dissociation and recombination reactions as particular cases of disproportionation reactions. We discuss numerous examples of elementary reactions, which form a database for various reaction mechanisms. We start with the zero coverage limit and then focus on coadsorption effects on reaction energetics on monometallic and bimetallic (alloy) surfaces. We consider first the full treatment and then develop the “uniform scaling” approximation, with guidelines (and examples) where it may be efficiently used. We provide tables of numerical values covering most of practically important cases of coadsorption effects on fcc(1 1 1) and fcc(1 0 0) surfaces, which allow one to easily estimate coverage effects on activation barriers by simple interpolation. We also clarify the nature of basic UBI-QEP parameters and correlation between local and global adsorbate coverage. These developments, illustrated by various examples, make applications of the UBI-QEP method much easier for practitioners, particularly those who have no UBI-model computer program and make calculations by hand.