Eley-Pauling equation

Beeck at Shell Laboratories in Emeryville, USA, had in 1940 studied chemisorption and catalysis at polycrystalline and gas-induced (110) oriented porous nickel films with ethene hydrogenation found to be 10 times more active than at polycrystalline surfaces. It was one of the first experiments to establish the existence of structural specificity of metal surfaces in catalysis. Eley suggested that good agreement with experiment could be obtained for heats of chemisorption on metals by assuming that the bonds are covalent and that Pauling s equation is applicable to the process 2M + H2 -> 2M-H. 

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