Surface study of adsorption of carbon monoxide onto a nickel catalyst and the effects of doping

The study was done on how adsorption of carbon monoxide gas on the catalytic surface is affected by doping with boron and phosphorus in metallic nickel powder. The effect of doping was investigated using FTIR spectroscopy and compared to the spectra obtained from adsorption of carbon monoxide on pure nickel catalyst surface. An understanding of the results obtained from the nickel sample was also shown in explaining the peaks obtained. The results obtained through the comparison show that doping with either boron or phosphorus produces a new CO adsorption band at the respective wave numbers of 1917cm and 2095cm. These two peaks prove to be more resistant to purging and hence show a significant increase in the adsorption strength of CO onto the catalyst, hence showing the effectiveness of doping to further increase the concentration of CO on the catalytic surface and hence further increase the rate of reaction.