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Why gold is the noblest of all the metals

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Why gold is the noblest of all the metals

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by BjÃ¸rk Hammer and Jens K. NÃ¸rskov

published in Nature 376, 238 (1995).

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Abstract

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The unique role that gold plays in society is to a large extent related
to the fact that it is the most noble of all metals: it is the least
reactive metal towards atoms or molecules at the interface with a gas or
a liquid. The inertness of gold does not reflect a general inability to
form chemical bond, however - gold forms very stable alloys with many
other metals. To understand the nobleness of gold, we have studied a
simple surface reaction, the dissociation of H2 on the surface of gold
and of three other metals (copper, nickel and platinum) that lie close
to it in the periodic table. We present self-consistent
density-functional calculations of the activation barriers and
chemisorption energies which clearly illustrate that nobleness is
related to two factors: the degree of filling of the antibonding states
on adsorption, and the degree of orbital overlap with the adsorbate.
These two factors, which determine both the strength of the
adsorbate-metal interaction and the energy barrier for dissociation,
operate together to the maximal detriment of adsorbate binding and
subsequent reactivity on gold.

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