The Langmuir-Hinshelwood Reaction between Oxygen and CO at Ir(l 11) Surfaces

Dedicated to Prof. G. M. Schwab on the occasion of his 80th birthday The reaction of oxygen and CO to form CO2 has been investigated using an Ir (111) surface as an acting catalyst. Both instationary and stationary reaction processes have been established via separate gas exposing techniques. The instationary reaction process, achieved from coadsorbed CO and O which per se is an LH reaction is found to be controlled by an apparent activation energy of 10.7 kcal/mole. The stationary reaction with both CO and O2 continuously present in the gas phase has been simulated using a proper computer program, involving both LH and ER reaction steps. By comparison with experimental results, close agreement is found when ruling out any ER reaction step from the reaction path.