Single atom catalysts on amorphous supports: A quenched disorder perspective

Phenomenological models that invoke catalyst sites with different adsorption constants and rate constants are well-established, but computational and experimental methods are just beginning to provide atomically resolved details about amorphous surfaces and their active sites. This letter develops a statistical transformation from the quenched disorder distribution of site structures to the distribution of activation energies for sites on amorphous supports. We show that the overall kinetics are highly sensitive to the precise nature of the low energy tail in the activation energy distribution. Our analysis motivates further development of systematic methods to identify and understand the most reactive members of the active site distribution. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.