Step by Step

摘要

In surface-catalyzed reactions, there are often myriad steps between the first contact of the reagents with the surface and the ultimate desorption of the final products. Characterization of these intermediate stages can help to unravelrnthe reaction mechanism and thereby aid development of improved catalysts. Although scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has been used to follow a number of reactions of adsorbed species on metal surfaces, there are few examples of such studies on metal oxides. Matthiesen et al. studied the oxidation by O_2 of adsorbed hydrogen atoms on a (110) surface of titanium dioxide using time-lapsed STM images and density functional theory calculations.