Probing Structural Effects on the Surface Chemistry of Pt-Group IV Bimetallics

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This research project addresses the effect of atomic scale structure and composition on the reactivity of bimetallic alloy surfaces for catalytic processes. With the support of the Analytical and Surface Chemistry Program, Professor Koel and his co-workers in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Southern California, use scanning tunneling microscopy, X-ray photoelectron diffraction, and ion scattering spectroscopy to examine the structure, composition and morphology of Pt-Sn, Pt-Ge, and Pt-Ti alloy surfaces. This information is correlated with small molecule catalytic activity on these surfaces, using temperature programmed desorption and infrared spectroscopy to monitor the surface reaction kinetics. Information obtained from these studies improves our fundamental understanding of catalysis on complex heterogeneous surfaces. Atomic scale structural and compositional information is correlated with surface reaction kinetics in these studies, carried out in the laboratory of Professor Bruce Koel at USC. The identification of the reactive site for catalytic processes on alloy surfaces is the goal of this work. Fundamental insight into the operation of catalytic surfaces is obtained from these studies.