Comparison of Coverage-Dependent Binding Energy Models for Mean-Field Microkinetic Rate Predictions

The binding energies of adsorbates at catalytic surfaces are in general functions of adsorbate coverage, with corresponding consequences for equilibrium surface coverages and reaction rates under relevant conditions. This coverage dependence is commonly incorporated into mean-field microkinetic models by writing adsorption energies as an algebraic function of coverage and parametrizing against density functional theory models. In this work, we compare the performance of three different analytical coverage-dependent forms, including linear and piecewise models and a logarithmic form inspired by Wilson’s activity model, against accurate results obtained from a lattice-based cluster expansion (CE) representation of adsorbate interactions combined with a Monte Carlo evaluation of reaction rates. We take as a model system O2 dissociation-limited NO oxidation to NO2 over Pt(111), parametrize all models against the same set of previously reported coverage-dependent NO and O binding energies, and solve kinetic mo...