Metals, coadsorption

Diehl R D and McGrath R 1996 Structural studies of alkali metal adsorption and coadsorption on metal surfaces Surf. Sc/. Rep. 23 43... 

Electronegative adatoms cause significant changes in the metal surface electronic stmcture, manifest as changes in the surface work function. In general electronegative additives increase the work function of the metal substrate. Typical examples are shown in Figures 2.9 and 2.10 for the adsorption of Cl and coadsorption of Cl and O on the work function of... 

The coadsorption of oxygen as well as of other electronegative additives on metal surfaces favors in general the 7t-bonded molecular state of ethylene, as the latter exhibits, compared to the di-o bonded state, a more pronounced electron donor character and a negligible backdonation of electron density from the metal surface. 

K.J. Maynard, and M. Moskovits, A surface enhanced Raman study of carbon dioxide coadsorption with oxygen and alkali metals on silver surfaces,/. Chem. Phys. 90(11), 6668-6679 (1989). 

The non situ experiment pioneered by Sass uses a preparation of an electrode in an ultrahigh vacuum through cryogenic coadsorption of known quantities of electrolyte species (i.e., solvent, ions, and neutral molecules) on a metal surface. " Such experiments serve as a simulation, or better, as a synthetic model of electrodes. The use of surface spectroscopic techniques makes it possible to determine the coverage and structure of a synthesized electrolyte. The interfacial potential (i.e., the electrode work function) is measured using the voltaic cell technique. Of course, there are reasonable objections to the UHV technique, such as too little water, too low a temperature, too small interfacial potentials, and lack of control of ionic activities. ... 

Studies of coadsorption at Cu(110) and Zn(0001) where a coadsorbate, ammonia, acted as a probe of a reactive oxygen transient let to the development of the model where the kinetically hot Os transient [in the case of Cu(110)] and the molecular transient [in the case of Zn(0001)] participated in oxidation catalysis16 (see Chapters 2 and 5). At Zn(0001) dissociation of oxygen is slow and the molecular precursor forms an ammonia-dioxygen complex, the concentration of which increases with decreasing temperature and at a reaction rate which is inversely dependent on temperature. Which transient, atomic or molecular, is significant in chemical reactivity is metal dependent. 

Electrochemical reactions are driven by the potential difference at the solid liquid interface, which is established by the electrochemical double layer composed, in a simple case, of water and two types of counter ions. Thus, provided the electrochemical interface is preserved upon emersion and transfer, one always has to deal with a complex coadsorption experiment. In contrast to the solid/vacuum interface, where for instance metal adsorption can be studied by evaporating a metal onto the surface, electrochemical metal deposition is always a coadsorption of metal ions, counter ions, and probably water dipols, which together cause the potential difference at the surface. This complex situation has to be taken into account when interpreting XPS data of emersed electrode surfaces in terms of chemical shifts or binding energies. 

For this reason, the emphasis in this article is directed more towards the simulation of specific adsorption and, in particular, the recent encouraging comparison of electrochemical and UHV data for the interaction of bromine and chlorine with Ag 110 /7, 8/. A brief outline of the conclusions emerging from alkali-water coadsorption experiments is given to illustrate basic modes of ion-solvent interaction on metal surfaces and to discuss future directions of this research. 

Although quite a few studies of the coadsorption of water and alkalis on metal surfaces in UHV. have been reported /19-21/ the possibility of complete hydration of the alkali adsorbate has not been considered in most cases The reason is probably that, as yet, all the experimental evidence suggests that the alkali 10ns are "specifically" adsorbed in such gas-phase simulation experiments, even when an excess of water (several multilayers) is made available. This result is not yet understood, although one should again keep in mind that the simulation experiments are typically performed 150 K below room temperature. 

Modeling the Aqueous—Metal Interface in Ultrahigh Vacuum via Cryogenic Coadsorption... 

All electrochemical techniques measure charge transferred across an interface. Since charge is the measurable quantity, it is not surprising that electrochemical theory has been founded on an electrostatic basis, with chemical effects added as a perturbation. In the electrostatic limit ions are treated as fully charged species with some level of solvation. If we are to use UHV models to test theories of the double layer, we must be able to study in UHV the weakly-adsorbing systems where these ideal "electrostatic" ions could be present and where we would expect the effects of water to be most dominant. To this end, and to allow application of UHV spectroscopic methods to the pH effects which control so much of aqueous interfacial chemistry, we have studied the coadsorption of water and anhydrous HF on Pt(lll) in UHV (3). Surface spectroscopies have allowed us to follow the ionization of the acid and to determine the extent of solvation both in the layer adjacent to the metal and in subsequent layers. 

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