The role of surface defects in the adsorption of methanol on Fe₃O₄(001)

O. Gamba, J. Hulva, J. Pavelec, R. Bliem, M. Schmid, U. Diebold, G. S. Parkinson

Top. Catal. 60 (2017) 420-430

The adsorption of methanol (CH₃OH) at the Fe₃O₄(001)-(√2 × √2)R45° surface was studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, and temperature-programmed desorption (TPD). CH₃OH adsorbs exclusively at surface defect sites at room temperature to form hydroxyl groups and methoxy (CH₃O) species. Active sites are identified as step edges, iron adatoms, antiphase domain boundaries in the (√2 × √2)R45° reconstruction, and above Fe atoms incorporated in the subsurface. In TPD, recombinative desorption is observed around 300 K, and a disproportionation reaction to form methanol and formaldehyde occurs at 470 K.

Corresponding author: Gareth Parkinson (parkinson).

You can download a PDF file of this open-access article from Topics in Catalysis. or from the IAP/TU Wien web server.

A preprint is available at arXiv.org.