Turning aluminium into a noble-metal-like catalyst for low-temperature activation of molecular hydrogen.

Activation of molecular hydrogen is the first step in producing many important industrial chemicals that have so far required expensive noble-metal catalysts and thermal activation. We demonstrate here that aluminium doped with very small amounts of titanium can activate molecular hydrogen at temperatures as low as 90 K. Using an approach that uses CO as a probe molecule, we identify the atomistic arrangement of the catalytically active sites containing Ti on Al(111) surfaces, combining infrared reflection-absorption spectroscopy and first-principles modelling.