First-principles study of the interactions of hydrogen with low-index surfaces of PdCu ordered alloy

PdCu catalysts play a key role in several hydrogen-involved processes. Among these reactions, the interaction of hydrogen with PdCu essentially determines the catalytic performance. However, the response of PdCu to surrounding hydrogen has been poorly investigated, especially for specific facets of PdCu at different environment. In this work, taking temperature and hydrogen pressure into account, we studied the hydrogen-surface interactions for four low-index surfaces of PdCu through first-principles calculations. It was found that H-PdCu adsorption strong relies on the facets, hydrogen coverage, and reaction environment (temperature and H-pressure). Our work highlights the importance of the environment on the nature of catalyst surfaces and reactions and offers a plausible way to investigate the interactions between gas and the surfaces of nanocatalysts in real reactions.