Vibrational spectroscopy diffuse reflectance

Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) has been frequently employed in UV-Vis spectroscopy of zeolites (cf. Volume 4, Chapter 4 of the present series). More recently, it became also popular in IR investigations (cf., e.g., [160, 161]). The DRIFT technique is advantageous because it is successfully applicable not only in the mid infrared but also in the near infrared (NIR) region of 4000-10,000 cm where the transmission technique usually fails because of severe scattering through the absorbent particles. The NIR range, however, is very important with respect to the study of overtone and combination modes of vibrations. Moreover, diffuse reflectance IR experiments can be carried out not only with pressed wafers as in transmission spectroscopy, but also with zeolite pow-... 

Vibrational Spectroscopy. Infrared absorption spectra may be obtained using convention IR or FTIR instrumentation the catalyst may be present as a compressed disk, allowing transmission spectroscopy. If the surface area is high, there can be enough chemisorbed species for their spectra to be recorded. This approach is widely used to follow actual catalyzed reactions see, for example. Refs. 26 (metal oxide catalysts) and 27 (zeolitic catalysts). Diffuse reflectance infrared reflection spectroscopy (DRIFT S) may be used on films [e.g.. Ref. 28—Si02 films on Mo(llO)]. Laser Raman spectroscopy (e.g.. Refs. 29, 30) and infrared emission spectroscopy may give greater detail [31]. 

Measurements of supported catalysts in diffuse reflection and transmission mode are in practice limited to frequencies above those where the support absorbs (below about 1250 cm-1). Infrared Emission Spectroscopy (IRES) offers an alternative in this case. When a material is heated to about 100 °C or higher, it emits a spectrum of infrared radiation in which all the characteristic vibrations appear as clearly recognizable peaks. Although measuring in this mode offers the attractive advantage that low frequencies such as those of metal-oxygen or sulfur-sulfur bonds are easily accessible, the technique has hardly been explored for the purpose of catalyst characterization. An in situ cell for IRES measurements and some experiments on Mo-O-S clusters of interest for hydrodesulfurization catalysts have been described by Weber etal. [11],... 

Vibrational spectroscopy can help us escape from this predicament due to the exquisite sensitivity of vibrational frequencies, particularly of the OH stretch, to local molecular environments. Thus, very roughly, one can think of the infrared or Raman spectrum of liquid water as reflecting the distribution of vibrational frequencies sampled by the ensemble of molecules, which reflects the distribution of local molecular environments. This picture is oversimplified, in part as a result of the phenomenon of motional narrowing The vibrational frequencies fluctuate in time (as local molecular environments rearrange), which causes the line shape to be narrower than the distribution of frequencies [3]. Thus in principle, in addition to information about liquid structure, one can obtain information about molecular dynamics from vibrational line shapes. In practice, however, it is often hard to extract this information. Recent and important advances in ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy provide much more useful methods for probing dynamic frequency fluctuations, a process often referred to as spectral diffusion. Ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy of water has also been used to probe molecular rotation and vibrational energy relaxation. The latter process, while fundamental and important, will not be discussed in this chapter, but instead will be covered in a separate review [4],... 

D.L. Wetzel and J.A. Eilert, Optics and sample handling for near-infrared diffuse reflection in Handbook of Vibrational Spectroscopy, J.M. Chalmers and P.R. Griffiths (eds), vol 1, John Wiley Sons, New York, 2002. 

However, the improved sensitivity of FT-IR allows one to obtain better sensitivity using the conventional sampling accessories and expand the range of sampling techniques. Emission, diffuse reflectance and photoacoustic spectroscopy represent new areas where FT-IR reduces the difficulty of the techniques considerably. Greatly improved results are also achievable from reflection spectroscopy. Special effects such as vibrational circular dichroism can be observed using FT-IR instrumentation. 

Conventionally, in IR spectroscopy the measured absorptions are caused by the fundamental vibrations of the atoms within a molecule. In many cases, important information can be obtained by examining the overtones of these fundamental vibrations. This can be done in the transmission mode, but elegant work using diffuse reflectance spectroscopy is discussed by Klier. 

Wetzel, D.L. and Eilert, A.J., Optics and Sample Handling for Near-Infrared Diffuse Reflection. In Chalmers, J.M. and Griffiths, P.R. (eds), Handbook of Vibrational Spectroscopy, vol 2 John Wiley 8c Sons New York, 2002, pp. 1163-1174. 

One indication of the developing interest in PATs in the pharmaceutical area is the number of book chapters and review articles in this field that have appeared in the last few years. Several chapters in The Handbook of Vibrational Spectroscopy3 are related to the use of various optical spectroscopies in pharmaceutical development and manufacturing. Warman and Hammond also cover spectroscopic techniques extensively in their chapter titled Process Analysis in the Pharmaceutical Industry in the text Pharmaceutical Analysis.4 Pharmaceutical applications are included in an exhaustive review of near-infrared (NIR) and mid-infrared (mid-IR) by Workman,5 as well as the periodic applications reviews of Process Analytical Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Science in the journal Analytical Chemistry. The Encyclopedia of Pharmaceutical Technology has several chapters on spectroscopic methods of analysis, with the chapters on Diffuse Reflectance and Near-Infrared Spectrometry particularly highlighting on-line applications. There are an ever-expanding number of recent reviews on pharmaceutical applications, and a few examples are cited for Raman,7 8 NIR,9-11 and mid-IR.12... 

SnOz nanocrystals with a particle size ranging from 3.5 to 17.9 nm are prepared by heating a smaller SnOz nanocrystal at different temperatures. The samples are characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The Raman spectra show a surface-related vibration mode, which is dependent on the crystallite size of the SnOz nanocrystals. The quantum confinement effect is observed. The UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopic results indicate that the band gap of the SnOz nanocrystals increases from 3.65 eV to 3.95 eV when the particle size decreases from 4.0 nm to 3.6 nm. 

For ferromagnetic cobalt particles in zeolite X, spin-echo ferromagnetic resonance has been used to obtain unique structural information (S6). In addition, study of the catalytic signature of metal/zeolite catalysts has been used by the groups of Jacobs (87), Lunsford (88), and Sachtler (47,73,89). Brpnsted acid protons are identified by their O—H vibration (90,91) in FTIR or indirectly, by using guest molecules such as pyridine or trimethylphosphine (92,93). An ingenious method to characterize acid sites in zeolites was introduced by Kazansky et al., who showed by diffuse reflection IR spectroscopy that physisorbed H2 clearly discerns different types of acid sites (94). Also, the weak adsorption of CO on Brpnsted and Lewis acid sites has been used for their identification by FTIR (95). The characterization of the acid sites was achieved also by proton NMR (96). 

Fluorescence and phosphorescence are emission processes which originate directly or indirectly (see 5 section ll.B) from the electronically excited singlet state and triplet state, respectively, produced by charge-transfer processes (Eqs. 1 and 2). Many publications deal with such charge-transfer transitions by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) (2-6) showing the link between the latter technique and photoluminescence. It is worthwhile to recall that the emergence of the coordination chemistry of solid-state anions, namely, of surface lattice oxide ions, has almost entirely been based on the results of both photoluminescence and DRS analyses (7, 66). For some catalytic systems, vibrational structures can be detected (see Section IV.B) with an associated vibrational constant, which may be determined directly and independently by IR or Raman spectroscopy, evidencing the relation between these spectroscopies and photoluminescence (33, 34). 

The reactivity of oxide supported metals has received considerable attention because of the importance of such systems in heterogeneous catalysis. The morphology (structure and size) of the supported particle and its stability, the interaction of the particle with the support, and the crossover of adsorbed reactants, products and intermediates between the metal and oxide phases are all important in determining the overall activity and selectivity of the system. Because of the relative insensitivity of an optical technique such as IR to pressure above the catalysts, and the flexibility of transmission and diffuse reflection measurement techniques, vibrational spectroscopy has provides a considerable amount of information on high area (powder) oxide supported metal surfaces. Particularly remarkable was the pioneering work of Eichens and Pliskin [84] in which adsorbed CO was characterised by IR spectroscopy on... 

Vibrational spectroscopy is the method of choice for the characterizing functional groups in complex organic molecules. Infrared transmission spectroscopy has been used on dried humics pressed into KBr pellets to determine the relative carboxylate content of humic materials (14-16). However, interferences arise from the presence of water bands and possible alterations of the samples under the high pressures used to form the pellets. Diffuse-reflectance techniques can avoid some of the difficulties associated with the KBr pressed-pellet method (9,17-18). To obtain a spectrum analogous to an absorption spectrum, the data are transformed from reflectance units to Kebulka-Munk (K-M) units. However, K-M units are related to... 

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