Chemisorbed intermediates intermediate adsorption

Two years ago, Advances in Catalysis featured a chapter on chemisorbed intermediates in electrocatalysis. In this issue we follow up with a chapter by Wendt, Rausch, and Borucinski, Advances in Applied Electrocatalysis. The successful commercial application of electrocatalysis requires a detailed, fundamental knowledge of the many catalytic phenomena such as adsorption, diffusion, and superimposition of catalyst micro- and nanostructure on the special requirements of electrode behavior. Considerable understanding of the status and limitations of electrolysis, fuel cells, and electro-organic syntheses has been obtained and provides a sound basis for future developments. 

A heterogeneous catalytic reaction, by definition, necessitates the participation of at least one chemisorbed intermediate (54) and involves a sequence of interlinked and interdependent (55,56) steps, which include the adsorption of reactant(s), one or more surface rearrangements, and the desorption of product(s). More than one area of the solid may be active in promoting reaction the activity of such regions may vary from one crystallographic... 

Below 0.45 V the chemisorbed intermediates formed on methanol adsorption are stable on any smooth platinum surface, with the steady-state current for methanol oxidation being extremely small. Above this potential, oxidation of methanol takes place at a rate that increases exponentially with potential, with the product being primarily C02. In addition, above potentials of approximately 0.6 V, the surface is steadily stripped of adsorbed carbon-containing species, with the loss of such species being complete near 0.8 V. It would seem likely on most surfaces that it is oxidation of COads or =C-OH in a sequential reaction pathway that leads to C02, but more active intermediates, such as CO adsorbed at less stable sites, such as those at the edges... 

While a knowledge of surface mobility is of great interest in physical adsorption, it becomes essential in chemisorption phenomena. For instance in calorimetric work a curve of differential heats of adsorption versus surface coverage will be horizontal if adsorption is localized but shows the customary slope from high to low values of the heat of adsorption if the adsorbed layer is mobile Furthermore if a chemisorbed intermediate takes part in a surface reaction (crystal growth, corrosion, catalysis), it is essential to know whether, after adsorption anywhere on the surface, it can migrate to a locus of reaction (dislocation, etch pit, active center). Yet here again, while Innumerable adsorption data have been scrutinized for their heat values, very few calculations have been made of the entropies of chemisorbed layers. A few can be found in the review of Kemball (4) and in the book of Trapnell (11). 

The principal aims of this review are to indicate the role of chemisorbed intermediates in a number of well-known electrocatalytic reactions and how their behavior at electrode surfaces can be experimentally deduced by electrochemical and physicochemical means. Principally, the electrolytic gas evolution reactions will be covered thus, the extensive work on the important reaction of O2 reduction, which has been reviewed recently in other literature, will not be covered. Emphasis will be placed on methods for characterization of the adsorption behavior of the intermediates that are the kinetically involved species in the main pathway of the respective reactions, rather than strongly adsorbed by-products that may, in some cases, importantly inhibit the overall reaction. The latter species are, of course, also important as they can determine, in such cases, the rate of the overall reaction and its kinetic features, even though they are not directly involved in product formation. 

In the more interesting case here where 6 is significant and potential dependent, Qi must be replaced, to an approximation, by Qi + where is the adsorption pseudocapacitance of the chemisorbed intermediate derived from differentiating the (Langmuir) isotherm... 

Co-adsorption experiments show a complex role of the nature and concentration of chemisorbed ammonia species. Ammonia is not only one of the reactants for the synthesis of acrylonitrile, but also reaction with Br()>nsted sites inhibits their reactivity. In particular, IR experiments show that two pathways of reaction are possible from chemisorbed propylene (i) to acetone via isopropoxylate intermediate or (ii) to acrolein via allyl alcoholate intermediate. The first reaction occurs preferentially at lower temperatures and in the presence of hydroxyl groups. When their reactivity is blocked by the faster reaction with ammonia, the second pathway of reaction becomes preferential. The first pathway of reaction is responsible for a degradative pathway, because acetone further transform to an acetate species with carbon chain breakage. Ammonia as NH4 reacts faster with acrylate species (formed by transformation of the acrolein intermediate) to give an acrylamide intermediate. At higher temperatures the amide may be transformed to acrylonitrile, but when Brreform ammonia and free, weakly bonded, acrylic acid. The latter easily decarboxylate forming carbon oxides. 

We shall assume that the surface of the catalyst contains chemisorbed atomic oxygen and that it is these chemisorbed oxygen atoms that act, when in the ion-radical state, as adsorption centers for CO molecules. In this case, during the adsorption of CO molecules, surface ion radicals C02-are formed as intermediate compounds, which, after being preliminarily neutralized, are desorbed in the form of C02 molecules. 

Deviations from this simple expression have been attributed to mechanistic complexity For example, detailed kinetic studies have evaluated the relative importance of the Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism in which the reaction is proposed to occur entirely on the surface with adsorbed species and the Eley-Rideal route in which the reaction proceeds via collision of a dissolved reactant with surface-bound intermediates 5 . Such kinetic descriptions allow for the delineation of the nature of the adsorption sites. For example, trichloroethylene is thought to adsorb at Ti sites by a pi interaction, whereas dichloroacetaldehyde, an intermediate proposed in the photo-catalyzed decomposition of trichloroethylene, has been suggested to be dissociatively chemisorbed by attachment of the alpha-hydrogen to a surface site... 

Metals frequently used as catalysts are Fe, Ru, Pt, Pd, Ni, Ag, Cu, W, Mn, and Cr and some of their alloys and intermetallic compounds, such as Pt-Ir, Pt-Re, and Pt-Sn [5], These metals are applied as catalysts because of their ability to chemisorb atoms, given an important function of these metals is to atomize molecules, such as H2, 02, N2, and CO, and supply the produced atoms to other reactants and reaction intermediates [3], The heat of chemisorption in transition metals increases from right to left in the periodic table. Consequently, since the catalytic activity of metallic catalysts is connected with their ability to chemisorb atoms, the catalytic activity should increase from right to left [4], A Balandin volcano plot (see Figure 2.7) [3] indicates apeak of maximum catalytic activity for metals located in the middle of the periodic table. This effect occurs because of the action of two competing effects. On the one hand, the increase of the catalytic activity with the heat of chemisorption, and on the other the increase of the time of residence of a molecule on the surface because of the increase of the adsorption energy, decrease the catalytic activity since the desorption of these molecules is necessary to liberate the active sites and continue the catalytic process. As a result of the action of both effects, the catalytic activity has a peak (see Figure 2.7). 

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