In situ XPS study of methanol reforming on PdGa near-surface intermetallic phases

[Display omitted] ► A Pd1Ga1 surface without Ga2O3 contact is inactive for CO2 formation in methanol steam reforming. ► In situ XPS spectroscopy showed that water activation is blocked on Pd1Ga1. ► The valence band electronic structure of Pd1Ga1 favors selective dehydrogenation to H2CO. ► In oxidative steam reforming, the Pd1Ga1 surface behaves like extended Pd. ► Thus, total methanol oxidation by O2 at low temperatures is predominant. In situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and low-energy ion scattering were used to study the preparation, (thermo)chemical and catalytic properties of 1:1 PdGa intermetallic near-surface phases. Deposition of several multilayers of Ga metal and subsequent annealing to 503–523K led to the formation of a multi-layered 1:1 PdGa near-surface state without desorption of excess Ga to the gas phase. In general, the composition of the PdGa model system is much more variable than that of its PdZn counterpart, which results in gradual changes of the near-surface composition with increasing annealing or reaction temperature. In contrast to near-surface PdZn, in methanol steam reforming, no temperature region with pronounced CO2 selectivity was observed, which is due to the inability of purely intermetallic PdGa to efficiently activate water. This allows to pinpoint the water-activating role of the intermetallic/support interface and/or of the oxide support in the related supported PdxGa/Ga2O3 systems, which exhibit high CO2 selectivity in a broad temperature range. In contrast, corresponding experiments starting on the purely bimetallic model surface in oxidative methanol reforming yielded high CO2 selectivity already at low temperatures (∼460K), which is due to efficient O2 activation on PdGa. In situ detected partial and reversible oxidative Ga segregation on intermetallic PdGa is associated with total oxidation of intermediate C1 oxygenates to CO2.