The newly developed pulsed molecular beams are an efficient tool for deducing and investigating the catalytic reactivity of supported mass-selected metal clusters under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. The catalytic properties of MgO/Mo(100) supported Pdn-clusters (n= 8, 13, 30) were investigated towards the oxidation of CO by O2 as model reaction. For the first time a size-dependency of the catalytic reaction was observed with decreasing reactivity for Pd13, Pd8, Pd30. This change in reactivity originates from surface diffusion (reverse spill-over). Additionally, the course of the mole fraction could be devided into an O-rich and a CO-rich regime, in which the CO-adsorption and the dissociative oxygen-adsorption could be deduced as rate limiting step, respectively. The inhibition of the CO2 formation due to pre-adsorption of CO was less efficient than expected. This was also observed by alternating the pulse sequences of the two reactants at low substrate temperatures as well as by saturating the surface by CO, through which different reaction mechanisms could be obtained.
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The newly developed pulsed molecular beams are an efficient tool for deducing and investigating the catalytic reactivity of supported mass-selected metal clusters under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. The catalytic properties of MgO/Mo(100) supported Pdn-clusters (n= 8, 13, 30) were investigated towards the oxidation of CO by O2 as model reaction. For the first time a size-dependency of the catalytic reaction was observed with decreasing reactivity for Pd13, Pd8, Pd30. This change in reactivity ori...
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