Ethanol adsorption
A very first part of the overall mechanism is the conversion of ethanol into acetaldehyde, which starts with the adsorption of ethanol on the cluster. Ethanol adsorption on the MgO surface was investigated by Branda et al .[45] using an embedded cluster model approach. The authors considered four different absorption sites: terrace, edge, O-apical, and Mg-apical; their positions on the MgO (100) surface are described in Fig. 3. According to their results, the absorption energy becomes stronger in the following order: terrace < edge < O-apical < Mg-apical.