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ABSTRACT Understanding the mechanism of catalytic hydrogenation at the local environment requires chemical and topographic information involving catalytic sites, active hydrogen species, and
their spatial distribution. Here we used tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) to study the catalytic hydrogenation of chloronitrobenzenethiol on a well-defined Pd(submonolayer)/Au(111)
bimetallic catalyst (\(p_{\rm{H}_{2}}\) = 1.5 bar, 298 K), where the surface topography and chemical fingerprint information were simultaneously mapped with nanoscale resolution (~10 nm).
TERS imaging of the surface after catalytic hydrogenation confirms that the reaction occurs beyond the location of Pd sites. The results demonstrate that hydrogen spillover accelerates
hydrogenation at Au sites as far as 20 nm from the bimetallic Pd/Au boundary. Density functional theory was used to elucidate the thermodynamics of interfacial hydrogen transfers. We
demonstrate TERS to be a powerful analytical tool that provides a unique approach to spatially investigate the local structure–reactivity relationship in catalysis. Access through your
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REAL-SPACE IMAGING OF A PHENYL GROUP MIGRATION REACTION ON METAL SURFACES Article Open access 21 February 2023 SMALL MOLECULE BINDING TO SURFACE-SUPPORTED SINGLE-SITE TRANSITION-METAL
REACTION CENTRES Article Open access 01 December 2022 SINGLE HYDROGEN ATOM MANIPULATION FOR REVERSIBLE DEPROTONATION OF WATER ON A RUTILE TIO2 (110) SURFACE Article Open access 19 January
2021 DATA AVAILABILITY The original data used in this publication are made available in a curated data archive at ETH Zurich (https://www.researchcollection.ethz.ch) under
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000423837, or are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper. CODE AVAILABILITY The MATLAB
codes used for processing the data are made available in a curated data archive at ETH Zurich (https://www.researchcollection.ethz.ch) under https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000423837, or are
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method for finding saddle points and minimum energy paths. _J. Chem. Phys._ 113, 9901 (2000). CAS Google Scholar Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported financially by
the European Research Council program (grant number 741431—2DNanoSpec), the Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 21925404, 21775127 and 21703181), the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (20720190044) and MOST (2019YFA0705402). L.-Q.Z. was financially supported by the Chinese Scholarship Council for a PhD student fellowship. H.Y. was
financially supported by the Sino‐Swiss Science and Technology Cooperation program (grant number EG22‐122016). W.F. and J.O.R. are supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (project
number 175696.) We thank A. Rossi (ETH Zurich) and G. Cossu (ETH Zurich) for help with the XPS measurements. DFT computations were supported by the High-Performance Computing Team at ETH
Zurich. H.Y. and L.-Q.Z. also thank A. Begley, J.B. Metternich, J. Szczerbińsky and J.A. van Bokhoven (all from ETH Zurich) for insightful discussions. H.Y. thanks W.-Q. Li (Xiamen
University) for the coverage measurements. AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Hao Yin, Li-Qing
Zheng, Wei Fang, Yin-Hung Lai, Nikolaus Porenta, Guillaume Goubert, Jeremy O. Richardson & Renato Zenobi * State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, Collaborative
Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, College of Energy, College of Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China Hao Yin,
Hua Zhang, Hai-Sheng Su, Bin Ren & Jian-Feng Li Authors * Hao Yin View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Li-Qing Zheng View author
publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Wei Fang View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Yin-Hung Lai View
author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Nikolaus Porenta View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar *
Guillaume Goubert View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Hua Zhang View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed
Google Scholar * Hai-Sheng Su View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Bin Ren View author publications You can also search for this author
inPubMed Google Scholar * Jeremy O. Richardson View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Jian-Feng Li View author publications You can also
search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Renato Zenobi View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS R.Z. and J.-F.L. supervised
the project. L.-Q.Z. conceived of the ideas. L.-Q.Z. and H.Y. designed the experiments. H.Y., L.-Q.Z. and N.P. performed the experiments. W.F. and J.O.R. performed the DFT calculations.
Y.-H.L. and L.-Q.Z. performed the TPD-MS experiments. G.G., H.-S.S. and B.R. contributed to the electrochemistry. H.Y., L.-Q.Z. and W.F. wrote the manuscript with the help of G.G. and H.Z.
All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript. CORRESPONDING AUTHORS Correspondence to Li-Qing Zheng, Jeremy O. Richardson, Jian-Feng Li or Renato Zenobi. ETHICS
DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing interests. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PUBLISHER’S NOTE Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional affiliations. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary Figs. 1–25, discussion and Tables 1 & 2. SUPPLEMENTARY DATA 1 Cartesian
coordinates (Å) for the optimized geometries in DFT calculations. SOURCE DATA SOURCE DATA FIG. 1 Cyclic voltammetry data and Raman signals for Fig. 1. SOURCE DATA FIG. 2 Raw spectrum data
without background subtraction for Fig. 2. SOURCE DATA FIG. 3 Statistical source data for Fig. 3. SOURCE DATA FIG. 4 Statistical source data for Fig. 4. SOURCE DATA FIG. 5 Statistical source
data for Fig. 5. SOURCE DATA FIG. 6 Statistical source data for Fig. 6. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Yin, H., Zheng, LQ., Fang, W.
_et al._ Nanometre-scale spectroscopic visualization of catalytic sites during a hydrogenation reaction on a Pd/Au bimetallic catalyst. _Nat Catal_ 3, 834–842 (2020).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-020-00511-y Download citation * Received: 21 January 2020 * Accepted: 06 August 2020 * Published: 21 September 2020 * Issue Date: October 2020 * DOI:
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