Oxidation Mechanism of Formic Acid on the Bismuth Adatom-Modified Pt(111) Surface

In order to improve catalytic processes, elucidation of reaction mechanisms is essential. Here, supported by a combination of experimental and computational results, the oxidation mechanism of formic acid on Pt(111) electrodes modified by the incorporation of bismuth adatoms is revealed. In the proposed model, formic acid is first physisorbed on bismuth and then deprotonated and chemisorbed in formate form, also on bismuth, from which configuration the C–H bond is cleaved, on a neighbor Pt site, yielding CO2. It was found computationally that the activation energy for the C–H bond cleavage step is negligible, which was also verified experimentally.