THE FIRST MEASUREMENT OF AN ABSOLUTE SURFACE CONCENTRATION OF REACTION INTERMEDIATES IN ETHYLENE HYDROGENATION

The first measurement of a turnover rate with respect to surface inter mediate concentration in a high pressure heterogeneous catalytic react ion is reported. By using infrared-visible sum frequency generation to study the hydrogenation of ethylene on Pt(111), it was found that the surface concentration of pi-bonded ethylene, the key reaction interme diate, represented approximately 4% of a monolayer. Thus the absolute turnover rate per surface adsorbed ethylene molecule is 25 times faste r than the rate measured per platinum atom. To explain these results, we propose a model of weakly adsorbed ethylene intermediates reacting on atop sites.