Rotational tunnelling of methane on the surface of graphitized carbon blacks studied by neutron scattering spectroscopy

Rotational tunnelling transitions of methane adsorbed on the surface of graphitized carbon black have been observed by incoherent neutron inelastic scattering. Two transitions have been observed, at 58 μeV and 108 μeV, which arise from the barrier to rotation about axes parallel to the surface. The methane molecules undergo rotational diffusion about an axis perpendicular to the surface. The tunnelling transitions are quite sharp at 6 K but become broader as the temperature is raised. At 30 K the motion is best described as isotropic rotational diffusion. The tunnelling spectrum has been observed on two different graphitized carbon blacks, Vulcan III (71 m² g^?1) and Sterling FT (11 m² g^?1). the latter has a more homogeneous surface and gives a sharper spectrum. Tunnelling has also been observed for methane adsorbed on Sterling FT preplated with a monolayer of xenon. When a second layer of methane is added to the first the tunnelling spectrum becomes broad and an inelastic feature appears at higher energy corresponding to a slightly hindered rotation. The value of using tunnelling spectra of adsorbed species to test models of surface forces is discussed with examples of different atom—atom potential parameters.