Bulk oxides

In corrosion, adsorbates react directly with the substrate atoms to fomi new chemical species. The products may desorb from the surface (volatilization reaction) or may remain adsorbed in fonning a corrosion layer. Corrosion reactions have many industrial applications, such as dry etching of semiconductor surfaces. An example of a volatilization reaction is the etching of Si by fluorine [43]. In this case, fluorine reacts with the Si surface to fonn SiF gas. Note that the crystallinity of the remaining surface is also severely disrupted by this reaction. An example of corrosion layer fonnation is the oxidation of Fe metal to fonn mst. In this case, none of the products are volatile, but the crystallinity of the surface is dismpted as the bulk oxide fonns. Corrosion and etching reactions are discussed in more detail in section A3.10 and section C2.9. 

Wang L S, Nicholas J B, Dupuis M, Wu FI and Colson S D 1997 SijO (x = 1-6) models for oxidation of silicon surfaces and defect sites in bulk oxide materials Phys. Rev. Lett. 78 4450... 

The bulk stmcture of the catalyticaHy active phase is not completely known and is under debate in the Hterature (125,131—133). The central point of controversy is whether (Valone or in combination with other phases is the most catalyticaHy active for the conversion of butane to maleic anhydride. The heart of this issue concerns the role of stmctural disorder in the bulk and how it arises in the catalyst (125,134,135). Most researchers agree that the catalysts with the highest activity and selectivity ate composed mainly of (Vthat exhibits a clustered or distorted platelet morphology (125). It is also generaHy acknowledged that during operation of the catalyst, the bulk oxidation state of the vanadium in the catalyst remains very close to the +4 valence state (125). 

In another example, Ti02 can be deposited on a siHca support body in order to obtain a stable high surface titania. This is necessary because Ti02 sinters badly on heating in the bulk oxide and loses surface area. The Ti02 Si02 combination is useful as a catalyst for the oxidation of o-xylene to phthaHc anhydride. 

The literature on the oxidation of nickel-copper alloys is not extensive and emphasis tends to be placed on the copper-rich materials. The nickel-rich alloys oxidise according to a parabolic law and at a rate similar to that for nickel Corronil (Ni-30Cu) exhibited a parabolic rate behaviour below 850°C but a more complex behaviour involving two parabolic stages above 900°C. Electron diffraction examination of the oxide films formed on a range of nickel-copper alloys showed the structures of the films to be the same as for the bulk oxides of the component metals and on all the alloys examined only copper oxide was formed below 500°C and only nickel oxide above 700°C . 

XPS has shown that no bulk or surface PtC>2 forms even under severe and prolonged anodic polarization. The back-spillover O2 species is a surface species, not a bulk oxide. 

SIMS Cluster Ion Characterization During Oxygen Adsorption and Oxidation. For heavy oxidation, that is essentially bulk oxide films, the oxidation state of the metal can be determined from the positive and negative SIMS intensity distributions (1 ). Though similar attempts have been made to characterize the nature of the surface during the early stages of oxygen interactions (14,15), we now know from the extensive information available from other techniques that such interpretations are incorrect. We use the by now well-characterized W(100)/O and Ni(100)/0 systems as examples. 

The first step of oxide-layer formation is oxygen adsorption (chemisorption). In the case of platinum, the process stops at this stage, and depending on the conditions, an incomplete or complete monolayer of adsorbed oxygen is present on the platinum surface. In the case of other metals, layer formation continues. When its thickness 5 has attained two to three atomic diameters, the layer is converted to an individual surface phase that is crystalline (more seldom, amorphous) and has properties analogous to those of the corresponding bulk oxides. 

The surface-phase layers will difier in character depending on the stractures of metal and oxide. On certain metals (zinc, cadmium, magnesium, etc.), loose, highly porous layers are formed which can attain appreciable thicknesses. On other metals (aluminum, bismuth, titanium, etc.), compact layers with low or zero porosity are formed which are no thicker than 1 pm. In a number of cases (e.g., on iron), compact films are formed wfiicfi fiave a distorted lattice, owing to the influence of substrate metal stracture and of the effect of chemical surface forces. The physicochemical and thermodynamic parameters of such films differ from tfiose of ordinary bulk oxides. Because of the internal stresses in the distorted lattice, such films are stable only when their thickness is insignificant (e.g., up to 3 to 5 nm). 

Figure 3.49. Gravimetric measurement of chemisorption of N2O on a supported Cu eatalyst (Luys et al., 1989). Surface and bulk oxidation can be easily discriminated.

The curve consists or two parts, a fast initial weight increase followed by a slow weight increase. The interpretation is as follows. First a fast surface oxidation takes place. From these data the dispersion should be calculated. As the rate becomes lower, oxidation of the atoms below the surface occurs. This does not give direct information on the di.spersion but rather on the kinetics of the bulk oxidation of the Cu particles. 

Before we can apply the extended ab initio atomistic thermodynamics approach to the oxygen-covered surface or the surface/bulk oxide, we have to investigate the structure of the bulk electrode. 

The expression in the square brackets is exactly the formation energy of the Pt bulk oxide out of bulk platinum and molecular O2, which can easily be evaluated by DFT calculations [Jacob, 2007b]. Together with the experimental value for AGq, we can finally formulate the following stabUity ranges at which the three known Pt bulk oxides are thermodynamically stable ... 

Decomposition of the bulk oxide will occur if Afi Q is too negative to fulfill these conditions. 

In this section, we will investigate the surface structure of the electrode in the potential range before a surface or bulk oxide starts forming, and will restrict ourselves to the adsorption of atomic oxygen only (not OH ) [Jacob and Scheffler, 2007]. Furthermore, in our simulations, we assume a single-crystal Pt(lll) electrode, which will be compared with the experimental CV curve (Fig. 5.9) for poly crystalline Pt. This simplification is motivated by the fact that our interest here is to describe the general behavior of the system only. 

In the Pt bulk oxide range of the phase diagram, which is relevant provided that (5.26) is fulfilled, the bulk electrode is Pt oxide and no longer pure Pt. Therefore the corresponding term in (5.28) that accounts for the bulk electrode reservoir now has to involve Since the bulk electrode should be in thermodynamic equihbrium with the surroundings. 

Figure 7.4 Peak potential values of adatom redox processes on Pt(l 11) and Pt(lOO) electrodes in 0.5 M H2SO4 solution, as labeled, plotted against the enthalpy of formation of the corresponding bulk oxide. Lines are included to indicate the tendency (the full line corresponds to the filled squares, and the dashed line to the open circles).

In the following, after a brief description of the experimental setup and procedures (Section 13.2), we will first focus on the adsorption and on the coverage and composition of the adlayer resulting from adsorption of the respective Cj molecules at a potential in the Hup range as determined by adsorbate stripping experiments (Section 13.3.1). Section 13.3.2 deals with bulk oxidation of the respective reactants and the contribution of the different reaction products to the total reaction current under continuous electrolyte flow, first in potentiodynamic experiments and then in potentiostatic reaction transients, after stepping the potential from 0.16 to 0.6 V, which was chosen as a typical reaction potential. The results are discussed in terms of a mechanism in which, for methanol and formaldehyde oxidation, the commonly used dual-pathway mechanism is extended by the possibility that reaction intermediates can desorb as incomplete oxidation products and also re-adsorb for further oxidation (for the formic acid oxidation mechanism, see [Samjeske and Osawa, 2005 Chen et al., 2006a, b Miki et al., 2004]). 

Bulk Oxidation of Formic Acid, Formaldehyde, and Methanol Potentiodynamic Measurements... 

In this section, we present results of potentiodynamic DBMS measurements on the continuous (bulk) oxidation of formic acid, formaldehyde and methanol on a Pt/ Vulcan catalyst, and compare these results with the adsorbate stripping data in Section 13.3.1. We quantitatively evaluate the partial oxidation currents, product yields, and current efficiencies for the respective products (CO2 and the incomplete oxidation products). In the presentation, the order of the reactants follows the increasing complexity of the oxidation reaction, with formic acid oxidation discussed first (one reaction product, CO2), followed by formaldehyde oxidation (two reaction products) and methanol oxidation (three reaction products). 

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