Geometric heterogeneity of the lattice and its effect on the kinetics phase transitions of surface reactions

Two novel phenomena are discussed in this paper. The first one refers to th e effect of the catalyst's surface heterogeneity on the smoothing of the fi rst-order transition observed in the (A + B-2) reaction (ZGB model). The se cond effect corresponds to obtaining information on the surface heterogenei ty from the shape of the transition curve. Two types of heterogeneity were considered: the structure obtained by the random blocking of reactive sites , and the existence of a distribution in independent strips or terraces on the catalyst's surface. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rig hts reserved.