Local fluctuations during catalytic CO oxidation on Pt

A field emission study

verfasst von
Yu Suchorski, J. Beben, R. Imbihl
Abstract

Field electron microscopy (FEM) is employed to monitor local brightness fluctuations that occur during catalytic CO oxidation on a Pt field emitter tip and that are caused by local variations in the adsorbate coverages. The reaction is studied in the bistability range at T = 310 K with fixed po2 = 4.0 x 10-4 Torr and pCO = 3.0 x 10-7 Torr. The measurements are conducted on the apex plane of a [100]-oriented Pt tip. Local time series are obtained by digitization of the video-recorded FEM image (40 ms time resolution) and integration of the intensity in windows of 100 x 100 Å and 20 x 100 Å size. From the measured time series, the autocorrelation and cross-correlation functions were determined. Fluctuations on the reactive (oxygen covered) and on the inactive (CO covered) branch of the reaction exhibit quite substantial differences. On the reactive branch, spatial correlations extend over much longer distances (several hundred angstroms) than on the unreactive branch, and time correlations decay much more slowly. These differences are discussed on the basis of the Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism for catalytic CO oxidation. The fluctuations on the unreactive branch apparently originate from CO diffusion alone.

Organisationseinheit(en)
Institut für Physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie
Externe Organisation(en)
University of Wroclaw
Typ
Artikel
Journal
Surface science
Band
405
Seiten
L477-L483
ISSN
0039-6028
Publikationsdatum
12.05.1998
Publikationsstatus
Veröffentlicht
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Physik der kondensierten Materie, Oberflächen und Grenzflächen, Oberflächen, Beschichtungen und Folien, Werkstoffchemie