Reactivity of chemisorbed oxygen on silver and copper surfaces - Nature of the sites where the reaction takes place on the catalyst surface in hydrogen-oxygen reaction on copper and silver

A new method to identify the sites where the reaction takes place on the catalyst surface has been proposed, assuming that the rate of reaction is proportional to the number of reaction sites. In the hydrogen-oxygen catalytic reaction on the copper surface it was suggested that the rate-determining step of the reaction proceeds between the oxygen chemisorbed at the peripheral part of islands and dissociatively adsorbed hydrogen, whereas in the case of the silver surface, hydrogen molecules attack the linear chain row of chemisorbed oxygen from the ambient gas not at the ends of the chains, but in the middle part of the chains. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.