Naked-eye observation of water-forming reaction on palladium etalon: transduction of gas-matter reaction into light-matter interaction

Abstract Palladium is the most prominent material in both scientific and industrial research on gas storage, purification, detection, catalysis due to its unique properties as a catalyst hydrogen absorber. Advancing dynamic optical phenomena of palladium reacting with hydrogen, transduction gas-matter reaction into light-matter interaction attempted visualize surface chemistry behaviors. The simple geometry metal-dielectric-metal structure, Fabry–Perot etalon, employed for colorimetric reactor, display catalytic exposed via water-film/bubble formation at dielectric/palladium interface. adsorption/desorption behavior oxygen highly repeatable dramatic color changes based two distinct water trends: foggy effect by bubbles whiteout film formation. Simulations experiments demonstrate robustness proposed etalon an excellent platform monitoring opto-physical driven heterogeneous catalysis.