Metal–Porphyrin: A Potential Catalyst for Direct Decomposition of N2O by Theoretical Reaction Mechanism Investigation

The adsorption of nitrous oxide (N2O) on metal–porphyrins (metal: Ti, Cr, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, or Zn) has been theoretically investigated using density functional theory with the M06L functional to explore their use as potential catalysts for the direct decomposition of N2O. Among these metal–porphyrins, Ti–porphyrin is the most active for N2O adsorption in the triplet ground state with the strongest adsorption energy (−13.32 kcal/mol). Ti–porphyrin was then assessed for the direct decomposition of N2O. For the overall reaction mechanism of three N2O molecules on Ti–porphyrin, two plausible catalytic cycles are proposed. Cycle 1 involves the consecutive decomposition of the first two N2O molecules, while cycle 2 is the decomposition of the third N2O molecule. For cycle 1, the activation energies of the first and second N2O decompositions are computed to be 3.77 and 49.99 kcal/mol, respectively. The activation energy for the third N2O decomposition in cycle 2 is 47.79 kcal/mol, which is slightly lower than that of the second activation energy of the first cycle. O2 molecules are released in cycles 1 and 2 as the products of the reaction, which requires endothermic energies of 102.96 and 3.63 kcal/mol, respectively. Therefore, the O2 desorption is mainly released in catalytic cycle 2 of a TiO3–porphyrin intermediate catalyst. In conclusion, regarding the O2 desorption step for the direct decomposition of N2O, the findings would be very useful to guide the search for potential N2O decomposition catalysts in new directions.