Some Considerations Concerning Energetics

Developments in the Theory of Cationic Polymerisation, Part III, Some Considerations Concerning Energetics, P.H. Plesch, La Ricerca Scientifica, Supplemento Simposio Internationale di Chimica Macromoleculare, 1955, 25, 140-153. 

The scope of the present paper is to emphasize that the interactions between support, metal and atmosphere are responsible for both the physical (size distribution, shape of the crystallites, wettability of the substrate by the crystallites and vice versa), the chemical and the catalytic (suppression of chemisorption, increased activity for methanation, etc.) manifestations of the supported metal catalysts. In the next section of the paper, a few experimental results concerning the behaviour of iron crystallites on alumina are presented to illustrate the role of the strong chemical interactions between the substrate and the compounds of the metal formed in the chemical atmosphere. Surface energetic considerations, similar to those already employed by the author (7,8), are then used to explain some of the observed phenomena. Subsequently, the Tauster effect is explained as a result of the migration, driven by strong interactions,... 

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