The first two steps of methane dissociation on Rh(111) have been investigated using
density-functional theory, focusing on the
depen
dence of the catalyst's reactivity on the atomic coordination of the active metal site. We find that, although the barrier for the
dehydrogenation of methane (CH
4 CH
3 + H)
decreases as expected with the coordination of the binding site, the
dehydrogenation of methyl (CH
3 CH
2 + H) is hin
dered at an ad-atom
defect, where the first reaction is instead most favored. Our findings indicate that, if it were possible to let the dissociation occur selectively at ad-atom
defects, the reaction could be blocked after the first
dehydrogenation step, a result of high potential interest for many dream reactions such as, for example, the direct conversion of methane to methanol.