Watching the Restructuring of Working Surfaces

摘要

The surfaces of inorganic materials can often restructure if they are heated in an atmosphere of reactive gases—the conditions that industrial catalysts normally encounter during use. Experimental studies of these restructuring processes have been challenging because many surface-sensitive methods work best under high vacuum. Recently, techniques have been developed that allow surface structure to be determined in the presence of gases with partial pressures reaching nearly 1 atmosphere. Tao and Salmeron (p. 171) review some of the changes that can occur in nanoparticles, metal surfaces, and catalysts when the vacuum environment is replaced with reactive gases such as nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen.