Methanation reaction on nickel

Whereas one would in principle expect that, as a result of site blocking, CO dissociation would become suppressed by coadsorbed CO, this effect may be less pronounced at particular sites. In a remarkable investigation of the methanation reaction on nickel, Anderson et al. (30) found that on the double step sites of the Ni(311) surface (Table 3), there is essentially no suppression of CO dissociation by coadsorbed CO because the sites on which O and C finally reside do not attract CO. On a stepped Ni(211) surface, the activation energy for CO dissociation was found to increase by only 40 kj /mol as a result of the presence of coadsorbed CO. 

The chemisorption and reaction of hydrogen and hydrocarbon fragments on catalytically active transition metal surfaces has received a great deal of attention due to the commercial importance of hydrocarbon formation reactions (1-15). The methanation reaction on nickel has been studied by a variety of surface science techniques. Yates, et al. (1), and others, have concluded that the following steps must occur on Ni(lll) ... 

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