Ethylene epoxidation subsurface oxygen

As alluded to before, the adsorption of atoms and molecules may also induce segregation in alloys. Upon revisiting the thermodynamic behavior of the improved Cu-Ag alloy catalysts for ethylene epoxidation synthesized by Linic et al, (section 2.1) Piccinin et al. calculated that, while in the absence of oxygen Cu prefers to stay in the subsurface layers, oxygen adsorption causes it to segregate to the surface which then phase-separates into clean Ag(lll) and various Cu surface oxides under typical industrial conditions (Fig. 7). This casts doubt on the active state of the previous Cu-Ag catalysts being a well-mixed surface Ag-Cu alloy. 

Transient response techniques are used to investigate the activation of silver powder for ethylene epoxidation at vacuum and atmospheric pressures. Results indicate that the activation process is qualitatively the same in both pressure regimes. Numerical simulation of the process indicates that activation involves the concurrent incorporation of oxygen into surface and subsurface sites. The reaction selectivity parallels the incorporation of oxygen into the subsurface. 

C. J. Bertole, C. A. Mims, Dynamic isotope tracing Role of subsurface oxygen in ethylene epoxidation on silver, /. Catal. 184 (1999) 224. 

Key Words Ethylene oxide, Ethylene, Epoxidation, Silver, Cl promotion, Cs promotion. Promotion, Selectivity, Oxametallacycle, Adsorption, Desorption, Chemisorption, Activation energy, Ag-O bond. Reaction mechanism, Oxidation, Cyclisation, Heterogeneous catalysis, Selective oxidation, Eletrophilic oxygen. Nucleophilic oxygen. Subsurface O atoms, Ag/a-A Oj catalyst. 2008 Elsevier B.V. 

As previously noted, one of the intermediate species identified is the subsurface oxygen [Oss] that does not participate directly in the formation of reaction products. Different surface oxygen species are known to be involved in epoxidation and deep oxidation of ethylene. 

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