Below-Room-Temperature C-H Bond Breaking on an Inexpensive Metal Oxide: Methanol to Formaldehyde on CeO₂(111)

Upgrading of primary alcohols by C-H bond breaking currently requires temperatures of >200 °C. In this work, new understanding from simulation of a temperature-programmed reaction study with methanol over a CeO₂(111) surface shows C-H bond breaking and the subsequent desorption of formaldehyde, even below room temperature. This is of particular interest because CeO₂ is a naturally abundant and inexpensive metal oxide. We combine density functional theory and kinetic Monte Carlo methods to show that the low-temperature C-H bond breaking occurs via disproportionation of adjacent methoxy species. We further show from calculations that the same transition state with comparable activation energy exists for other primary alcohols; with ethanol, 1-propanol, and 1-butanol explicitly calculated. These findings indicate a promising class of transition states to search for in seeking low-temperature C-H bond breaking over inexpensive oxides.