Communication: Enhanced dissociative chemisorption of CO2 via vibrational excitation.

A fully coupled global nine-dimensional potential energy surface for the dissociative chemisorption of CO2 on Ni(100) is constructed from ∼18,000 density functional points. It reveals a complex reaction pathway dominated by two near iso-energetic transition states. The dissociation probabilities obtained by quasi-classical trajectories on the potential energy surface reproduced experimental trends, and indicate that vibrational excitations of CO2 significantly promote the dissociation. Using the sudden vector projection model, the behavior of the reactivity is rationalized by couplings with the reaction coordinate at each transition state. These results offer plausible rationalization for the observed enhancement of CO2 dissociation in non-thermal plasmas by metal surfaces.