Van Marum colloquium by dr. Christian Reece from Harvard University.

Catalytic surface science was developed as a method of “simplifying” the problem of heterogenous catalysis by determining kinetics and mechanisms on compositionally well-defined single-crystal metal surfaces.1 While fundamental studies are vital to our understanding of catalytic processes, transferring this knowledge to “real-world” catalytic systems is extremely difficult. In an attempt to bridge this gap, we are developing instrumentation and methodologies that are able to probe kinetic and mechanistic information at the same resolution as classic surface science while using “real-world” catalytic materials.

We have developed a number of home-built transient packed bed reactors in order to study “real-world” catalytic materials/systems. Using CO oxidation over a Pd catalyst as a test reaction we are able to recreate complex catalytic behaviour witnessed in a UHV molecular beam system2 in a packed bed reactor at 108 times higher pressure (Figure 1). Further, we are able to use time-resolved simulations of our transient experiments to demonstrate continuity between the kinetics coefficients measured using molecular beams2 and those measured on our materials under “real-world” conditions.

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The "Van Marum Colloquia" is a collaborative lecture series between the LION and LIC institutes, focusing on fundamental and applied surface science.