Substrate involvement in dioxygen bond dissociation catalysed by iron phthalocyanine supported on Ag(100).

Dioxygen adsorbs in the end-on configuration on-top of the Fe atoms of an iron phthalocyanine monolayer supported on Ag(100) and is partly cleaved at room temperature to produce O/FePc/Ag(100). Scanning tunnelling microscopy coupled to density functional theory calculations gives the first experimental evidence of the substrate involvement in the O-2 bond dissociation.