Graph Theory Approach to High-Throughput Surface Adsorption Structure Generation

J Phys Chem A. 2019 Mar 21;123(11):2281-2285. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpca.9b00311. Epub 2019 Mar 8.

Abstract

We present a methodology for graph based enumeration of surfaces and unique chemical adsorption structures bonded to those surfaces. Utilizing the graph produced from a bulk structure, we create a unique graph representation for any general slab cleave and further extend that representation to include a large variety of catalytically relevant adsorbed molecules. We also demonstrate simple geometric procedures to generate 3D initial guesses of these enumerated structures. While generally useful for generating a wide variety of structures used in computational surface science and heterogeneous catalysis, these techniques are also key to facilitating an informatics approach to the high-throughput search for more effective catalysts.