Surface structure and catalytic activity of Pd and Fe oxide surfaces and thin films
Catalytic processes have tremendous importance in our everyday life. Most chemicals, pharmaceuticals, plastics etc. are, in fact, produced with the help of catalysts. What is probably even more important is that the toxic wastes produced in great amounts by modern factories and plants are recycled or transformed into less poisonous substances by means of catalytic units. One example from our everyThe present work is devoted to atomic scale structural studies of the surfaces of model heterogeneous catalysts relevant to oxidation reactions. A novel approach using high-energy surface X-ray diffraction combined with mass-spectrometry measurements is employed to perform in situ structural characterization of Pd(100) and Pd(553) single crystal surfaces acting as catalysts in the process of CO ox