Physics of Submonolayer Adsorption

Infrared Spectroscopy. The infrared spectroscopy of adsorbates has been studied for many years, especially for chemisorbed species (see Section XVIII-2C). In the case of physisorption, where the molecule remains intact, one is interested in how the molecular symmetry is altered on adsorption. Perhaps the conceptually simplest case is that of H2 on NaCl(lOO). Being homo-polar, Ha by itself has no allowed vibrational absorption (except for some weak collision-induced transitions) but when adsorbed, the reduced symmetry allows a vibrational spectrum to be observed. Fig. XVII-16 shows the infrared spectrum at 30 K for various degrees of monolayer coverage [96] (the adsorption is Langmuirian with half-coverage at about 10 atm). The bands labeled sf are for transitions of H2 on a smooth face and are from the 7 = 0 and J = 1 rotational states Q /fR) is assigned as a combination band. The bands labeled 

Two other examples will sufhce. Methane physisorbs on NaCl(lOO) and an early study showed that the symmetrical, IR-inactive v mode could now be observed [97]. In more recent work, polarized FTIR rehection spectroscopy was used to determine that on being adsorbed, the three-fold degeneracies of the vs and v modes were partially removed [98]. This hnding allowed consideration of possible adsorbate-adsorbent geometries one was that of a tripod with three of the methane hydrogens on the surface. The systems were at between 4 and 40 K so that the equilibrium pressure was very low, about 10 atm. 

As a final example, similar spectroscopy was carried out for CO2 physisorbed on MgO(lOO) [99]. Temperatures were around 80 K and equilibrium pressures, as low as 10 atm (at higher temperatures, CO2 chemsorbs to give surface carbonate). Here, the variation of the absorbance of the infrared bands with the polarization of the probe beam indicated that the surface CO2 phase was highly oriented. 

The 02-graphite system has been studied by means of quite a few techniques LEED, RHEED, EELS, and NEXAFS (see Ref. 101). It was concluded, 

Potential Theory Approach. Potential theory may be used to treat submonolayer adsorbtion the formal statement is 

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