Chemical oscillations in catalytic CO oxidation reaction

Temporal dynamics of a heterogeneous catalytic system, namely of the catalytic CO oxidation on Pt(110) surface at low pressures, is investigated with taking into account the adsorbate-driven structural transformations of the catalyst surface. Uniform temporal periodic chemical oscillations of the CO and oxygen coverages, and the fraction of the surface of the 1 × 1 structure are obtained in a narrow region of phase diagram between two uniform stable states of high and low catalytic activities, respectively.

Since Langmuir's pioneering studies, the oxidation of CO over Pt is a classical example of a heterogeneous catalytic reaction.It is considered to be generic due to its apparently simple mechanism, richness of spatio-temporal behavior, and practical relevance [1].In particular, the temporal behavior of the reaction, for given constant control parameters, may either be constant (including bistability) or may become oscillatory or even chaotic [2,3].First kinetic oscillations in this reaction were found by Hugo in 1970 on a supported catalyst.Later on, this phenomenon was also observed for other types of catalysts (polycrystalline wires and single crystals) both at ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) and subatmospheric conditions.
Based on the knowledge about individual steps forming the reaction mechanism, temporal dynamics (with the exception of chaotic kinetics) could be successfully modelled by the solution of sets of ordinary differential equations (ODE's) for the variables describing the surface concentrations of the species involved [4][5][6].For a close-packed Pt(111) surface, these are the coverages for adsorbed CO and O, respectively [7].We will study the more open Pt(110) plane where the oscillatory behavior in the catalytic CO oxidation can be experimentally observed [8,9].
So, the oxidation of CO on platinum is known to proceed via the classical Langmuir-Hinshelwood (LH) mechanism (see [10][11][12]), Here * denotes an empty site, adsorbed species are written with the subscript ads.CO 2 desorbs immediately at the temperatures under consideration and therefore constitutes an inert product.The other gases exhibit only small variations of their partial pressure under the applied conditions so that they can be assumed constant.
Mathematical modelling of the experiments is conducted using a realistic model of catalytic CO oxidation on Pt(110) first studied by Krischer et al. [13].The model takes into account adsorption of CO and oxygen molecules, reaction and desorption of CO molecules.For simplicity, surface diffusion of adsorbed CO molecules, surface roughening, faceting, formation of subsurface oxygen, and the effects of internal gas-phase coupling are not taken into account.The system of differential equations describing the dynamics behavior of the model is The variables u and v represent the surface coverage of CO and oxygen, respectively.The variables can vary in the interval from 0 to 1.The difference between model ( 2)-( 3) and the model considered in our earlier paper [7] is that the precursor-type kinetics of CO adsorption is accounted for by the exponent q = 3 in the right hand part of equation (2).It makes the model more realistic since the inhibition of adsorption of CO and O 2 is asymmetric and preadsorbed CO blocks oxygen adsorption but not vice versa.The parameters, corresponding to Pt(110) surface, were chosen such that the reaction was oscillatory.For explanation and values of the parameters see table 1 taken from [14].Phase transition rate Analysis of the system (2)-(3) reveals that there is a bistability in one, and a cusp in two control parameters.It is known that in a system, the relaxation oscillations can emerge in bistable state if the system depends on a parameter slowly varying in time.It would be a model parameter connected with the variations of average coverages and the structural changes of the surface as a function of time, since at the experimental conditions, depending on the CO coverage, the reconstructed 1 × 2 Pt(110) surface may revert to the 1 × 1 structure.In this case the kinetic equation for the surface transformation should be taken into consideration.The structural phase transition 1 × 2 − 1 × 1 of the Pt(110) surface is considered through a simple relaxation law [14]: The variable w denotes the local fraction of the surface area found in the nonreconstructed 1 × 1 structure.
is a nondecreasing and smooth function of the interval [0,1] that appears in the equation for dw/dt.It is shown in figure 1.
The oxygen sticking coefficient s O in equation ( 3) was modified and taken as a linear combination of the values for the 1 × 2 − 1 × 1 structure: The steady states of the system are defined as the time independent solutions of the kinetic equations ( 2)-( 4): Linear stability analysis requires the solution of the secular equation for any given steady state: We solve the secular equation ( 8) and obtain two types of stationary points, namely these are stable nodal points, when all the roots are real and negative, and stable nodal-spirals, when one root is real negative, and the other two are complex with negative real part.As the control parameters are varied, we have transitions from one stability regime to another.We compute several regimes in the phase space of partial pressures.A phase diagram in (p CO , p O2 ) parameters is reproduced in figure 2. As we see, the stable regime corresponds to the region where the partial CO pressure is small compared with the O 2 partial pressure.Beyond that phase space region, unstable oscillatory regime appears.Furthermore, we obtain the surface poisoning by CO in qualitative agreement with experimental data found previously on Pt(100) surface in the field electron microscope (FEM) experiments [15].In the experimental kinetic phase diagram, the region in which the O ads layer is found at a high p O2 to p CO ratio, is separated by a region of the occurrence of kinetic oscillations from the region of the CO ads layer at a lower partial pressure ratio.
The ODE system (2)-( 4) exhibits uniform periodic chemical oscillations of the CO and oxygen coverages, as well as the oscillations of the fraction of the surface of the nonreconstructed 1 × 1 structure in a narrow region of the phase diagram between two uniform stable states of high and low catalytic activities.Examples of time series are shown in figure 3.As is seen from the figure, u and v oscillate in strictly opposite phases, variable w reaches its maximum after u.We see that the difference between the two cases (a) and (b) is that the oscillations have a larger period in the latter case of higher partial pressure p CO .The similar tendency is observed in the experiment, where the period of oscillations increases (except in the region near the right bifurcation point) with p CO pressure increasing [16].A decrease in T is associated with an increase of the oscillation period as is observed in figure 3(c) at lower temperature T = 535 K.In summary, we have investigated a kinetic model for the catalytic CO oxidation on a surface of Pt(110) at low pressures.From the analysis of stability of stationary points of the model, a phase diagram in the (p CO , p O2 ) parameter plane has been constructed.We have found two types of stationary points which present two different stability regimes, namely the stable and the unstable oscillatory ones.Oscillatory regime arises due to the interplay between bistability and adsorbateinduced surface reconstruction 1×2−1×1 exposing patches with different O 2 sticking probabilities.
The proposed model is obviously capable of qualitatively describing the experimentally observed features connected with kinetic oscillations in the catalytic CO oxidation on a Pt(110) surface at low pressures.However, it disregards many interesting phenomena of spatiotemporal behavior of the system such as mixed-mode oscillations, a period-doubling transition to chaos, and the formation of stationary as well as propagating spatial patterns.A successful description of the experimentally obtained behavior will most likely require to take spatial effects, namely diffusion of the reactants and faceting of the surface, into account.

)Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Function p[u] that appears in the equation for dw/dt.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Phase diagram of the model of surface oscillations in the (pCO, pO 2 ) parameter plane.

Table 1 .
Parameters of the model.