Isomer shift , Mossbauer active

What is the structure of this Co-Mo-S phase A model system, prepared by impregnating a MoS2 crystal with a dilute solution of cobalt ions, such that the model contains ppms of cobalt only, appears to have the same Mossbauer spectrum as the Co-Mo-S phase. It has the same isomer shift (characteristic of the oxidation state), recoilfree fraction (characteristic of lattice vibrations) and almost the same quadrupole splitting (characteristic of symmetry) at all temperatures between 4 and 600 K [71]. Thus, the cobalt species in the ppm Co/MoS2 system provides a convenient model for the active site in a Co-Mo hydrodesulfurization catalyst. 

The Mossbauer effect, although not a substitute for other analytical methods such as x-ray diffraction, can be used to obtain several kinds of structural information about solids. In favorable cases, it is possible to obtain rather detailed information about the electronic configuration of atoms and the local symmetry of their sites by measuring the isomer shift and quadrupole splitting. If more than one valence state of a given atom is present, a semiquantitative determination of the amount of each kind is possible. In solid solutions, the amount of local or long range order can be estimated, and in certain defect structures the relation between the active atoms and the defects can be studied. 

The success of the correlation of catalytic behavior with bulk Mossbauer parameters by Skalkina et al. is also reflected in the work of Tops0e and Boudart (96). As discussed earlier, these authors found a decrease in the isomer shift of the octahedral iron ions in a lead-promoted Cr-Fe304 carbon monoxide shift catalyst, indicative of an increased covalency of these ions. Schwab et al. (203) have proposed a correlation of the activity for CO oxidation by ferrites with the octahedral ions in these materials, and the electron transfer required for this catalytic process may be facilitated by an increased covalency of the metal ions (204). In view of these suggestions, the lead-promoted catalyst is expected to possess a higher catalytic activity for the CO shift reaction than an unpromoted catalyst, as evidenced by the Mossbauer parameters of these two samples. This has in fact been shown experimentally to be the case (96). For the reverse CO shift reaction over supported europium (176), the success of the correlation between catalytic activity and the Mossbauer parameters (in this case the reducibility) has already been noted in Section III, A, 4. 

Iron-supported-on-MgO catalysts behave in some ways differently from the above catalyst systems. That is, while the catalytic activity of these metallic-iron particles for the atmospheric-pressure ammonia synthesis depends markedly on particle size in the range 1.5-10 nm (206), the Mossbauer parameters (isomer shift, quadrupole splitting, and magnetic hyperfine splitting) are independent of iron particle size in this range (97). This thus rules out an electronic effect in the interpretation of the effect of particle... 

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