Periodic Reporting for period 3 - KIDS (Kinetics and Dynamics at Surfaces)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-09-01 al 2024-02-29
As evidence for global climate change continues to grow, catalysis has moved to the front line of the struggle to obtain new, sustainable technologies for the future. Catalysis and catalytic processes account, directly or indirectly, for 20-30 % of world gross domestic product. Knowledge of elementary chemical reaction mechanisms in heterogeneous catalysis underlies our ability to construct comprehensive kinetic models for many such important chemical processes, in order to optimize them.
The aim is to characterize the important factors that influence the kinetics of elementary reactions at surfaces, e.g. the chemical nature of the catalyst and the geometry of the active site (stereodynamics). We chose elementary reactions involving C, H, O, N, as these are important in many key industries, such as the methane reforming, syngas, fuel cells, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and the Haber-Bosch process. Our strategy is that of a “bottom-up” approach to catalysis, i.e. building and understanding complex heterogeneous chemical catalysis, from the site-specific kinetics of the elementary building block reactions. Our measurements, serve as benchmarks for first principles calculations of reaction rates in surface chemistry.
We have completed experiments on the existing apparatus concerning the oxidation of H2 on Pt (111)/(332)and Pd(111)/(332), and have studied the decomposition of Formic acid on the respective metal catalysts. The recombination of H-atoms on these two surfaces has been completed and is important in analysing the H2 oxidation kinetics.