Steady-state isotopic transient kinetic analysis response

Steady-state isotopic transient kinetic analysis (SSITKA) involves the replacement of a reactant by its isotopically labelled counterpart, typically in the form of a step or pulse input function. Producing an input function with isotope-labelled reactants permits the monitoring of isotopic transient responses, while maintaining the total concentration of labelled plus nonlabelled reactants, adsorbates, and products at steady-state conditions. It is assumed that there are no effects due to differences in kinetic behavior of the isotopic species from unmarked atomic species. However, for instance, deuterium substitution exhibits isotopic effects that can not be neglected. 

Pulse intensities in vacuum experiments range from 10 to 10 molecules per pulse with a pulse width of 250 ps and a pulse frequency of between 0.1 and 50 pulses per second. Such a spectrum of time resolution is unique among kinetic methods. Possible experiments include high-speed pulsing, both single-pulse and multipulse response, steady-state isotopic transient kinetic analysis (SSITKA), temperature-programmed desorption (TPD), and temperature-programmed reaction (TPR). 

Temperature-prograimned reduction, oxidation and desorption (TPR, TPO, TPD), belong probably to the most widely used in situ techiuques for the characterization of oxidation catalysts and are discussed in more detail in Section 19.4. While TPD (with ammonia as the probe molecule) is frequently used to examine surface acid sites, TPR and TPO (with H2 or O2, respectively) provide information on the redox properties of oxide catalysts being crucial for their performance in catalytic oxidation reactions. Important information on reaction mechanisms can be obtained when the catalysts are heated in the presence of reactants combined with mass spectrometric product analysis. This is called temperature-programmed reaction spectroscopy (TPRS). As far as reaction mechanisms and kinetics are concerned, transient techniques which reflect the response of the catalytic system to a sudden change of reactant are inevitable tools. Two such techiuques, namely the temporal analysis of products (TAP) reactor and steady-state isotopic transient kinetic analysis (SSITKA) will be described in more detail in Section 19.5. 

The plug flow reactor is increasingly being used under transient conditions to obtain kinetic data by analysing the combined reactor and catalyst response upon a stimulus. Mostly used are a small reactant pulse (e.g. in temporal analysis of products (TAP) [16] and positron emission profiling (PEP) [17, 18]) or a concentration step change (in step-response measurements (SRE) [19]). Isotopically labeled compounds are used which allow operation under overall steady state conditions, but under transient conditions with respect to the labeled compound [18, 20-23]. In this type of experiments both time- and position-dependent concentration profiles will develop which are described by sets of coupled partial differential equations (PDEs). These include the concentrations of proposed intermediates at the catalyst. The mathematical treatment is more complex and more parameters are to be estimated [17]. Basically, kinetic studies consist of ... 

The following sections provide a kinetic analysis of the transient responses based on an atomic state for the chemisorbed oxygen, 0(s). We show that this approach allows us to account for the qualitative features of the results described above, the temperature dependence of the rate of isotope scrambling under steady-state conditions, and results ftom temperature programmed desorption (TPD) experiments performed at very low pressure. The steady-state exchange and TPD experiments are described in Sec. 3.1.3.. The kinetics of isotope exchange of O2 (gas) with oxide materials have been reviewed by Ceilings and Bouwmeester. Readers are referred to this work and references therein for a more comprehensive discussions of the mechanisms and kinetics involved in more complex systems. 

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