SELF-ORGANIZATION IN REACTIONS AT SURFACES

The techniques of surface science provide detailed insights into the microscopic processes underlying catalytic reactions which form, on the other hand, the basis for appropriate modelling of the macroscopic kinetics. For constant external conditions, the rate of a catalytic reaction is, however, not necessarily stationary, but may become oscillatory or even chaotic. These effects are associated with non-uniform distribution of the adsorbed species over the surface on a mesoscopic scale, and their theoretical description is based on the concepts of nonlinear dynamics. Experimental verification of these phenomena of spatio-temporal self-organization is demonstrated with the catalytic CO oxidation on a Pt(110) surface as example.