Aerobic oxidation of hydrocarbons in Mn-doped aluminophosphates: a computational perspective to understand mechanism and selectivity

We discuss the mechanism and energetics for the aerobic oxidation of hydrocarbons catalysed by Mn-doped nanoporous aluminophosphates with the AFI structure (Mn-APO-5), obtained computationally using electronic structure techniques. Calculations have been performed employing hybrid exchange density functional theory methods under periodic boundary conditions. The active sites of the catalyst are tetrahedral Mn ions isomorphously replacing Al in the microporous crystalline framework of the AlPO host. Since all Al sites in AFI are symmetry equivalent, all Mn dopants are in an identical chemical and structural environment, and hence satisfy the definition of a single-site heterogeneous catalyst. We focus in particular on the atomic-level origin of selectivity in this catalytic reaction.