The first layer of water on Rh(111): microscopic structure and desorption kinetics

The adsorption states and growth process of the first water (D2O) layer on Rh(111) were investigated using infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy, temperature programed desorption, and spot-profile-analysis low energy electron diffraction. Water molecules wet the Rh(111) surface intact. At the early stage of first layer growth, a (square root 3 x square root 3)R30 degrees commensurate water layer grows where "up" and "down" species coexist; the up and down species represent water molecules which have free OD, pointing to a vacuum and the substrate, respectively. The up domain was a flatter structure than an icelike bilayer. Water desorption from Rh(111) was a half-order process. The activation energy and the preexponential factor of desorption are estimated to be 60 kJ/mol and 4.8 x 10(16) ML(1/2)/s at submonolayer coverage, respectively. With an increase in water coverage, the flat up domain becomes a zigzag layer, like an ice bilayer. At the saturation coverage, the amount of down species is 1.3 times larger than that of the up species. In addition, the activation energy and the preexponential factor of desorption decrease to 51 kJ/mol and 1.3 x 10(14) ML(1/2)/s, respectively.     

Enhancement of O2 dissociation on Au111 by adsorbed oxygen: implications for oxidation catalysis

We show that the dissociation probability of O2 on the reconstructed, Au111-herringbone surface is dramatically increased by the presence of some atomic oxygen on the surface. Specifically, at 400 K the dissociation probability of O2 on oxygen precovered Au111 is on the order of 10(-3), whereas there is no measurable dissociation on clean Au111, establishing an upper bound for the dissociation probability of 10(-6). Atomic oxygen was deposited on the clean reconstructed Au111-herringbone surface using electron bombardment of condensed NO2 at 100 K. The dissociation probability for dioxygen was measured by exposing the surface to 18O2. Temperature programmed desorption (TPD) was used to quantify the amount of oxygen dissociation and to study the stability of the oxygen in all cases. Oxygen desorbs as O2 in a peak centered at 550 K with pseudo-first-order kinetics; i.e., the desorption peak does not shift with coverage. Our interpretation is that the coverage dependence of the activation energy for dissociation (deltaE(dis)) and/or preexponential factor (nu(d)) may be responsible for the unusual desorption kinetics, implying a possible energy barrier for O2 dissociation on Au111. These results are discussed in the context of Au oxidation chemistry and the relationship to supported Au nanoparticles.     

Accelerated molecular dynamics simulation of the thermal desorption of n-alkanes from the basal plane of graphite

We utilize accelerated molecular dynamics to simulate alkane desorption from the basal plane of graphite. Eight different molecules, ranging from n-pentane to n-hexadecane, are studied in the low coverage limit. Acceleration of the molecular dynamics simulations is achieved using two different methods: temperature acceleration and a compensating potential scheme. We find that the activation energy for desorption increases with increasing chain length. The desorption prefactor increases with chain length for molecules ranging from pentane to decane. This increase subsides and the value of the preexponential factor fluctuates about an apparently constant value for decane, dodecane, tetradecane, and hexadecane. These trends are consistent with data obtained in experimental temperature-programed desorption (TPD) studies. We explain the dependence of the preexponential factor on alkane chain length by examining conformational changes within the alkane molecules. For the shorter molecules, torsional motion is not activated over experimental temperature ranges. These molecules can be treated as rigid rods and their partial loss in translational and rotational entropies upon adsorption increases as chain length increases, leading to an increasing preexponential factor. At their typical TPD peak temperatures, torsions are activated in the longer adsorbed chain molecules to a significant extent which increases with increasing chain length, increasing the entropy of the adsorbed molecule. This increase counteracts the decrease in entropy due to a loss of translation and rotation, leading to a virtually constant prefactor.     

n-alkanes on MgO(100). I. Coverage-dependent desorption kinetics of n-butane

High-quality temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) measurements of n-butane from MgO(100) have been made for a large number of initial butane coverages (0-3.70 ML, ML-monolayers) and a wide range of heating ramp rates (0.3-10 K/s). We present a TPD analysis technique which allows the coverage-dependent desorption energy to be accurately determined by mathematical inversion of a TPD spectrum, assuming only that the preexponential factor (prefactor) is coverage independent. A variational method is used to determine the prefactor that minimizes the difference between a set of simulated TPD spectra and corresponding experimental data. The best fit for butane desorption from MgO is obtained with a prefactor of 10(15.7+/-1.6) s(-1). The desorption energy is 34.9+/-3.4 kJ/mol at 0.5-ML coverage, and varies with coverage approximately as Ed(theta)=34.5+0.566theta+8.37 exp(-theta/0.101). Simulations based on these results can accurately reproduce TPD experiments for submonolayer initial coverages over a wide range of heating ramp rates (0.3-10 K/s). Advantages and limitations of this method are discussed.     

Interaction of water with clean and oxygen precovered nickel surfaces

The adsorption of water on a Ni(111) single crystal surface, clean as well as precovered with oxygen, has been investigated with thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS) and measurements of the adsorption-desorption equilibrium combined with XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy). The measurements have been carried out with water pressures up to 10^–5 mbar on surfaces, which have been either clean or precovered with oxygen. On the clean Ni(111) surface the first adsorbate layer with a maximum coverage of 0.42 ML (monolayers) has a desorption energy of 52 kJ/mol and a preexponential factor of desorption of 10¹⁶s^–1. A second water layer adsorbs with the desorption energy of the ice multilayer but with first order kinetics. On Ni(111) precovered with chemisorbed oxygen an additional state of molecular, more strongly bound water is found, but no dissociation. For higher oxygen precoverages where NiO islands are formed on the surface, also the water dissociation product OH is found adsorbed. On a sample covered with a closed NiO layer, adsorbed OH and molecular water in an energetically not well-defined state are found. High doses of water on oxygen-precovered Ni(111) induce a slow surface modification leading to water dissociation.     

n-alkanes on Pt(111) and on C(0001)Pt(111): chain length dependence of kinetic desorption parameters

We have measured the desorption of seven small n-alkanes (C(N)H(2N+2), N=1-4,6,8,10) from the Pt(111) and C(0001) surfaces by temperature programed desorption. We compare these results to our recent study of the desorption kinetics of these molecules on MgO(100) [J. Chem. Phys. 122, 164708 (2005)]. There we showed an increase in the desorption preexponential factor by several orders of magnitude with increasing n-alkane chain length and a linear desorption energy scaling with a small y-intercept value. We suggest that the significant increase in desorption prefactor with chain length is not particular to the MgO(100) surface, but is a general effect for desorption of the small n-alkanes. This argument is supported by statistical mechanical arguments for the increase in the entropy gain of the molecules upon desorption. In this work, we demonstrate that this hypothesis holds true on both a metal surface and a graphite surface. We observe an increase in prefactor by five orders of magnitude over the range of n-alkane chain lengths studied here. On each surface, the desorption energies of the n-alkanes are found to increase linearly with the molecule chain length and have a small y-intercept value. Prior results of other groups have yielded a linear desorption energy scaling with chain length that has unphysically large y-intercept values. We demonstrate that by allowing the prefactor to increase according to our model, a reanalysis of their data resolves this y-intercept problem to some degree.     

The mechanism of methanol formation and other reactions following formaldehyde adsorption on Ni(110)

The adsorption/desorption and reactive behavior of formaldehyde was studied on clean single-crystal Ni(110) at adsorption temperatures down to 200 °K. For low exposures of the surface to formaldehyde, hydrogen and CO binding states were populated due to decomposition of the molecule upon adsorption. Higher exposures gave rise to a decomposition-limited hydrogen peak exhibiting an activation energy of 20 kcal/gmol and an apparent frequency factor of 10¹⁴ sec^?1. At initial coverages of H₂CO exceeding about 0.5, monolayer methanol was observed to form. The formation of methanol involved a hydrogen atom transfer between two adsorbed H₂CO molecules and did not occur totally via surface hydrogen. Self-oxidation to form CO₂ was also observed. The surface exhibited reaction heterogeneity, and the surface reactivity was observed to depend on the temperature of adsorption of reactants, suggesting strong adsorbate-induced surface “reconstruction.”     

Au(111)上烷烃硫醇SAMs表面应力的理论研究

By using the established statistical thermodynamic theory of adsorbate-induced surface stress of adsorption monolayer on the metal surface, the surface stress Δgin the self-assembly of alkane thiolson Au (111) surface has been calculated. The quantitative relations of the surfaces tress Δgwith the length of the alkyl chain of the molecule and with the coverage θ of molecules on Au (111) have been theoretically Studied respectively. The calculated results agree with Bergeretalis experiment, and especially the quantitative discrepancy between the theory and experiment on the sign of the surface stress has been resolved.Among various components of the adsorbate-adsorbate interaction energies in the ad layer, the substrate mediated interaction is significant for the adsorbate-induced surface stress, which shows that the indirect contribution of the adsorption energy of alkane thiols through the substrate-mediated interaction is very important.This physical mechanism is similar to that for chloride monolayer on the Au (111) electrode.     

Enhanced low-temperature CO oxidation on a stepped platinum surface for oxygen pressures above 10(-5) Torr

The rate of CO oxidation has been characterized on the stepped Pt(411) surface for oxygen pressures up to 0.002 Torr, over the 100-1000 K temperature range. CO oxidation was characterized using both temperature-programmed reaction spectroscopy (TPRS) and in situ soft X-ray fluorescence yield near-edge spectroscopy (FYNES). New understanding of the important role surface defects play in accelerating CO oxidation for oxygen pressure above 10(-5) Torr is presented in this paper for the first time. For saturated monolayers of CO, the oxidation rate increases and the activation energy decreases significantly for oxygen pressures above 10(-5) Torr. This enhanced CO oxidation rate is caused by a change in the rate-limiting step to a surface reaction limited process above 10(-5) Torr oxygen from a CO desorption limited process at lower oxygen pressure. For example, in oxygen pressures above 0.002 Torr, CO(2) formation begins at 275 K even for the CO saturated monolayer, which is well below the 350 K onset temperature for CO desorption. Isothermal kinetic measurements in flowing oxygen for this stepped surface indicate that activation energies and preexponential factors depend strongly on oxygen pressure, a factor that has not previously been considered critical for CO oxidation on platinum. As oxygen pressure is increased from 10(-6) to 0.002 Torr, the oxidation activation energies for the saturated CO monolayer decrease from 24.1 to 13.5 kcal/mol for reaction over the 0.95-0.90 ML CO coverage range. This dramatic decrease in activation energy is associated with a simple increase in oxygen pressure from 10(-5) to 10(-3) Torr. Activation energies as low as 7.8 kcal/mol were observed for oxidation of an initially saturated CO layer reacting over the 0.4-0.25 ML coverage range in oxygen pressure of 0.002 Torr. These dramatic changes in reaction mechanism with oxygen pressure for stepped surfaces are consistent with mechanistic models involving transient low activation energy dissociation sites for oxygen associated with step sites. Taken together these experimental results clearly indicate that surface defects play a key role in increasing the sensitivity of CO oxidation to oxygen pressure.     

Structural and kinetic effects on a simple catalytic reaction: oxygen reduction on Ni(110)

Oxygen hydrogenation at 100 K by gas phase atomic hydrogen on Ni(110) has been studied under ultrahigh vacuum conditions by temperature programmed desorption (TPD) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Formation of adsorbed water and hydroxyl species was observed and characterized. The coverage of the reaction products was monitored as a function of both temperature and initial oxygen precoverage. On the contrary, when high coverage oxygen overlayers were exposed to gas phase molecular hydrogen, no hydrogenation reaction took place. The results are compared to the inverse process, exposing the hydrogen covered surface to molecular oxygen. In this case, at 100 K, simple Langmuir-Hinshelwood modeling yields an initial sticking coefficient for oxygen adsorption equal to 0.26, considerably lower than for the clean surface. Moreover, formation of hydroxyl groups is found to be twice as fast as the final hydrogenation of OH groups to water. Assuming a preexponential factor of 10(13) s(-1), an activation barrier of 6.7 kcal/mol is obtained for OH formation, thus confirming the high hydrogenating activity of nickel with respect to other transition metals, for which higher activation energies are reported. However, oxygen is hardly removed by hydrogen on nickel: this is explained on the basis of the strong Ni-O chemical bond. The hydrogen residual coverage is well described including a contribution from the adsorption-induced H desorption process which takes place during the oxygen uptake and which is clearly visible from the TPD data.     

气氛对神木煤部分气化煤焦再气化动力学参数的影响

在小型固定床上制备了一系列的神木煤部分气化煤焦,运用热天平分析了它们在不同气氛下的再气化动力学行为。结果表明,部分气化煤焦再气化动力学参数随部分气化煤焦气化率的变化而有规律的变化。在H2O气氛下再气化时,随着部分气化煤焦气化率的增加,活化能、指前因子与气化剂分压指数减小；在CO2气氛下再气化时,结果则有所不同,随着部分气化煤焦气化率的增加,活化能与指前因子增加,气化剂分压指数减小；无论何种气氛下再气化时,部分气化煤焦的活化能与指前因子均具有补偿效应。     

Suppression of field emission from W(110) and W(111) by Cu overlayers

The total energy distribution and the Fowler-Nordheim preexponential factor have been measured for field emission from the (100) and (111) facets of tungsten in the absence and in the presence of overlayers of chemisorbed copper. It is found that at close to monolayer coverage on the (100) facet the adsorbate dramatically reduces the surface density of states at the Fermi energy, whereas on the (111) facet the surface density of states at the Fermi energy is little affected. Self-consistent, semirelativistic LMTO calculations of the k-resolved layer densities of states at the centre of the surface Brillouin zone have been carried out for a tungsten-vacuum interface with and without an ordered overlayer of copper. According to the calculations, a copper monolayer on W(100) strongly suppresses the surface density of states at the Fermi energy, whereas for a copper monolayer on W(111) no such suppression is predicted. The consistency of these results with the experimental data indicates the promise of the present method for calculating the electronic structures of metal-vacuum interfaces.     

Determining Preexponential Factor in Model-Free Kinetic Methods: How and Why?

The kinetics of thermally stimulated processes in the condensed phase is commonly analyzed by model-free techniques such as isoconversional methods. Oftentimes, this type of analysis is unjustifiably limited to probing the activation energy alone, whereas the preexponential factor remains unexplored. This article calls attention to the importance of determining the preexponential factor as an integral part of model-free kinetic analysis. The use of the compensation effect provides an efficient way of evaluating the preexponential factor for both single- and multi-step kinetics. Many effects observed experimentally as the reaction temperature shifts usually involve changes in both activation energy and preexponential factor and, thus, are better understood by combining both parameters into the rate constant. A technique for establishing the temperature dependence of the rate constant by utilizing the isoconversional values of the activation energy and preexponential factor is explained. It is stressed that that the experimental effects that involve changes in the preexponential factor can be traced to the activation entropy changes that may help in obtaining deeper insights into the process kinetics. The arguments are illustrated by experimental examples.     

Electrochemically induced oxygen spillover and diffusion on Pt(111): PEEM imaging and kinetic modelling

Electrochemically induced oxygen spillover and diffusion in the Pt(O(2))|YSZ system is investigated in a combined experimental and theoretical study. The spreading of spillover oxygen is imaged by photoelectron emission microscopy (PEEM) on dense and epitaxial Pt(111) thin film electrodes prepared by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). Two different models are used to obtain surface diffusion coefficients from the experimental data, (i) an analytical solution of Fick's 2nd law of diffusion, and (ii) a numerical reaction-diffusion model that includes recombinative desorption of O(2) into the gas phase. The resulting diffusion coefficient has an activation energy of 50 kJ mol(-1) and a preexponential factor of 0.129 cm(2) s(-1) with an estimated uncertainty of ±20% for the activation energy and ±50% for the absolute value. The Fickian model slightly overpredicts diffusion coefficients due to the neglect of oxygen desorption. Experimental and theoretical results and limitations are discussed and compared to previous work.     

Structures of dense glycine and alanine adlayers on chiral Cu(3,1,17) surfaces

Density Functional Theory calculations have been used to predict the structures of dense glycine and alanine adlayers on Cu(3,1,17)(S). Facets of this chiral Cu surface result from adsorbate-induced surface reconstruction when glycine or alanine are adsorbed and annealed on Cu(100). We have calculated the surface energy changes associated with this surface reconstruction. Our results allow the enantiospecificity of this reconstruction following adsorption of enantiopure or racemic alanine on Cu(100) to be discussed. The overall stability of glycine and alanine adlayers on Cu(3,1,17)(S) arises from an interplay between the formation of chemical bonds with the Cu surface, deformations in the adsorbed molecules during adsorption, and intermolecular hydrogen bonds within the adlayer; none of these factors individually dominates.     

Effect of S arrangement on Fe(110) properties at 1/3 monolayer coverage: a DFT study

Using density functional theory calculations, we compare the relative stabilities and properties of different arrangements of S on Fe(110) at a 1/3 monolayer coverage, including two observed experimentally. For all studied arrangements, S is adsorbed in the three high-symmetry adsorption sites: 4-fold hollow, 3-fold hollow, bridge, and atop sites. The binding energy, work function change, adsorption geometry, charge density distribution, magnetic properties, and density of states are determined and compared. The most stable overlayer arrangement corresponds to the overlayer seen by experiment after dissociative adsorption of H2S and has S adsorbed in 4-fold hollow sites. In the other arrangements, the S atoms are located closer to each other on the surface reducing the stability of the overlayer. S causes a minor adsorbate-induced reconstruction of the Fe surface and quenches the magnetic moment of the Fe atoms it bonds to directly. It adsorbs as an electropositive species, causing a positive work function change and forms polar covalent bonds to the surface.     

Chlorine interactions with water ice studied by molecular beam techniques

The kinetics of chlorine interactions with ice at temperatures between 103 and 165 K have been studied using molecular beam techniques. The Cl(2) trapping probability is found to be unity at thermal incident energies, and trapping is followed by rapid desorption. The residence time on the surface is less than 25 microg at temperatures above 135 K and approaches 1 s around 100 K. Rate constants for desorption are determined for temperatures below 135 K. The desorption kinetics follow the Arrhenius equation, and activation energies of 0.24 +/- 0.03 and 0.31 +/- 0.01 eV, with corresponding preexponential factors of 10(12.08+/-1.19) and 10(16.52+/-0.38) s(-1), are determined. At least two different Cl(2) binding sites are concluded to exist on the ice surface. The observed activation energies are likely to be the Cl(2)-ice binding energies for these states, and the Cl(2)-surface interactions are concluded to be stronger than earlier theoretical estimates. The surface coverage of Cl(2) on ice under stratospheric conditions is estimated to be negligible, in agreement with earlier work.     

Reactions of ammonia on stoichiometric and reduced TiO(2)(001) single crystal surfaces

The reaction of NH(3) on the surface of the 011-faceted structure of the TiO(2)(001) single crystal is studied and compared to that on the O-defected surface. Temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) conducted after NH(3) adsorption at 300 K shows only molecular desorption at 340 K. Modeling of TPD signals as a function of surface coverage indicated that the activation energy, E(d), and pre-exponential factor, v(eff), decrease with increasing coverage. Near zero surface coverage, E(d) was found to be equal to 92 kJ/mol and v(eff) to be close to 10(13) /s. Both parameters decreased to approximately 52 kJ/mol and approximately 10(7) /s at saturation coverage. The decrease is due to a repulsive interaction of adsorbed NH(3) molecules on the surface. Computing of the TPD results show that saturation is obtained at 1/2 monolayer coverage (referred to Ti atoms). Both the amount and shape of NH(3) peak change on the reduced (Ar(+)-sputtered) surfaces. The desorption peak at 340 K is considerably attenuated on mildly reduced surfaces (TiO( approximately )(1.9)) and has totally disappeared on the heavily reduced surfaces (TiO(1.6)(-)(1.7)), where the main desorption peak is found at 440 K. This 440-K desorption is most likely due to NH(x) + H recombination resulting from ammonia dissociation upon adsorption on Ti atoms in low oxidation states.     

Interaction between water molecules and zinc sulfide nanoparticles studied by temperature-programmed desorption and molecular dynamics simulations

We have investigated the bonding of water molecules to the surfaces of ZnS nanoparticles (approximately 2-3 nm sphalerite) using temperature-programmed desorption (TPD). The activation energy for water desorption was derived as a function of the surface coverage through kinetic modeling of the experimental TPD curves. The binding energy of water equals the activation energy of desorption if it is assumed that the activation energy for adsorption is nearly zero. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of water adsorption on 3 and 5 nm sphalerite nanoparticles provided insights into the adsorption process and water binding at the atomic level. Water binds with the ZnS nanoparticle surface mainly via formation of Zn-O bonds. As compared with bulk ZnS crystals, ZnS nanoparticles can adsorb more water molecules per unit surface area due to the greatly increased curvature, which increases the distance between adjacent adsorbed molecules. Results from both TPD and MD show that the water binding energy increases with decreasing the water surface coverage. We attribute the increase in binding energy with decreasing surface water coverage to the increasing degree of surface under-coordination as removal of water molecules proceeds. MD also suggests that the water binding energy increases with decreasing particle size due to the further distance and hence lower interaction between adsorbed water molecules on highly curved smaller particle surfaces. Results also show that the binding energy, and thus the strength of interaction of water, is highest in isolated nanoparticles, lower in nanoparticle aggregates, and lowest in bulk crystals. Given that water binding is driven by surface energy reduction, we attribute the decreased binding energy for aggregated as compared to isolated particles to the decrease in surface energy that occurs as the result of inter-particle interactions.     

Morphological aspects of sulfate-induced reconstruction of Cu(1 1 1) in sulfuric acid solution: in situ STM study

Using in situ STM the atomic structure and the morphology of a Cu(1 1 1) surface exposed to a dilute sulfuric acid solution have been studied depending on the applied electrode potential. At anodic potentials near the onset of copper dissolution the electrode surface is reconstructed (expanded) caused by the specific adsorption of sulfate anions. The extent of the surface reconstruction strongly depends on the sulfate adsorption rate. Fast sulfate adsorption results in a mainly disordered sulfate adlayer on an unreconstructed copper surface. Conversely, slow sulfate adsorption produces a mainly reconstructed copper surface with a highly ordered sulfate/water coadsorption layer. This adsorbate structure shows an additional long-range Moiré modulation, due to a misfit between the first reconstructed and the second unreconstructed copper layer. This is verified by spectroscopy-like STM experiments, which allow the imaging not only of the adsorbate overlayer, but also of the underlying reconstructed substrate. This type of adsorbate-induced reconstruction is characterized by an expansion of the topmost copper layer. The kinetically slow process of reconstruction can be easily followed by dynamic STM measurements revealing a mass transport out of the topmost copper layer during the slow sulfate adlayer formation. Characteristically, new copper islands nucleate and grow, while the sulfate Moiré adlayer expands over the electrode surface. At cathodic electrode potentials the desorption of the sulfate adlayer is accompanied by the lifting of the surface reconstruction and the massive formation of surface defects, such as small pits and vacancy islands. A continuous cycling of the electrode potential leads to an enormous roughening of the surface morphology.