We report a density-functional study of some properties of the dissociative interaction of hydrogen and oxygen molecules on small palladium clusters (n = 5, 7, and 10). The calculated physisorption and chemisorption energies are compared with those of the infinite (111) palladium surface. First, adsorption of atomic hydrogen and oxygen is investigated on the Pd5, Pd7, and Pd10 clusters. Second, the interaction between H2 (O2) and the small Pd5 cluster is examined and compared to the process occurring on an infinite (111) surface. Finally, the simultaneous adsorption of two hydrogen (oxygen) atoms is analyzed in detail. As shown in a previous work, the binding energy of the first hydrogen (oxygen) atom does not depend significantly on the cluster size, and small two-layer clusters (n ≤ 10) can be used to determine with accuracy the interaction of atomic adsorbates with an infinite (111) palladium surface. In this study, we show that the dissociative chemisorption of H2 and more especially of O2 on a small palladium cluster may lead to erroneous binding energy:  the cluster's size may prevent an accurate description of the adsorbate-adsorbate interaction as a function of their distance. It is demonstrated that a good choice of both the size and the shape of the cluster is preponderant for a good description of the dissociative adsorption of H2 and O2 on an infinite (111) surface.

State-of-the-art van der Waals (vdW) corrected density functional theory (DFT) is routinely used to overcome the failure of standard DFT in the description of molecule/surface long range interactions. However, the systematic use of dispersion forces to model metallic surfaces could lead to less accurate results than the standard DFT and the effect of these corrections on the metal properties should be properly evaluated. In this framework, the behavior of two widely used vdW corrected DFT methods (DFT-D2 and vdW-DF/optB86b) has been evaluated on six metals, i.e. Al, Cu, Au, Ni, Co and Fe, with respect to standard GGA-DFT and experiments. Regarding bulk properties, general trends are found for the lattice parameter, cohesive energy and magnetic moment variations when the vdW correction is introduced. Surface energies, work functions and interlayer distances of closed packed surfaces, Al(111), Cu(111), Au(111) and magnetic Ni(111), Co(0001) and Fe(110), are also strongly affected by the dispersion forces. These modifications suggest a systematic verification of the surface properties when a dispersion correction is included.