Theoretical Insights into C-H Bond Activation of Methane by Transition Metal Clusters: The Role of Anharmonic Effects

Aiming towards materials design for methane activation, we study temperature ($T$), pressure ($p$) dependence of the composition, structure, and stability of metal oxide clusters in a reactive atmosphere using a prototypical model catalyst having wide applications: free transition metal (Ni) clusters in a combined oxygen and methane atmosphere. A robust methodological approach is employed, to show that the conventional harmonic approximation miserably fails for this class of materials and capturing anharmonic effects to the vibration free energy contribution is indispensable. To incorporate the anharmonicity in the vibrational free energy, we evaluate the excess free energy of the clusters numerically by thermodynamic integration method with hybrid density functional theory and {\em ab initio} molecular dynamics simulation inputs. We find that the anharmonic effect has a significant impact in detecting the activation of C$-$H bond, whereas the harmonic infrared spectrum completely fails due to the wrong prediction of the vibrational modes.