Hydrocarbon on Carbon: Coherent Vibrational Spectroscopy of Toluene on Graphite.

The ability to study the interactions of hydrocarbons on carbon surfaces is an integral step toward gaining a molecular level understanding of the chemical reactions and physical properties occurring on them. Here, we apply vibrational sum frequency generation (SFG) to determine the tilt angle of toluene, a common organic solvent, on millimeter-thick highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG). The combination of a time-delay technique, which results in the successful suppression of the nonresonant SFG response, and a null angle method is shown to overcome the "strong optical absorber" problem posed by macroscopically thick carbon samples and yields a molecular tilt angle of toluene in the range of 37° to 42° from the surface normal. The implications of this approach for determining the orientation of organic species adsorbed on carbon interfaces, which are important for energy-relevant processes, are discussed.

Identification of binding sites for acetaldehyde adsorption on titania nanorod surfaces using CIMS.

The interaction of acetaldehyde with TiO(2) nanorods has been studied under low pressures (acetaldehyde partial pressure range 10(-4)-10(-8) Torr) using chemical ionization mass spectrometry (CIMS). We quantitatively separate irreversible adsorption, reversible adsorption, and an uptake of acetaldehyde assigned to a thermally activated surface reaction. We find that, at room temperature and 1.2 Torr total pressure, 2.1 ± 0.4 molecules/nm(2) adsorb irreversibly, but this value exhibits a sharp decrease as the analyte partial pressure is lowered below 4 × 10(-4) Torr, regardless of exposure time. The number of reversible binding sites at saturation amounts to 0.09 ± 0.02 molecules/nm(2) with a free energy of adsorption of 43.8 ± 0.2 kJ/mol. We complement our measurements with FTIR spectroscopy and identify the thermal dark reaction as a combination of an aldol condensation and an oxidative adsorption that converts acetaldehyde to acetate or formate and CO, at a measured combined initial rate of 7 ± 1 × 10(-4) molecules/nm(2) s. By characterizing binding to different types of sites under dark conditions in the absence of oxygen and gas phase water, we set the stage to analyze site-specific photoefficiencies involved in the light-assisted mineralization of acetaldehyde to CO(2).

Displacement of hexanol by the hexanoic acid overoxidation product in alcohol oxidation on a model supported palladium nanoparticle catalyst.

This work characterizes the adsorption, structure, and binding mechanism of oxygenated organic species from cyclohexane solution at the liquid/solid interface of optically flat alumina-supported palladium nanoparticle surfaces prepared by atomic layer deposition (ALD). The surface-specific nonlinear optical vibrational spectroscopy, sum-frequency generation (SFG), was used as a probe for adsorption and interfacial molecular structure. 1-Hexanoic acid is an overoxidation product and possible catalyst poison for the aerobic heterogeneous oxidation of 1-hexanol at the liquid/solid interface of Pd/Al(2)O(3) catalysts. Single component and competitive adsorption experiments show that 1-hexanoic acid adsorbs to both ALD-prepared alumina surfaces and alumina surfaces with palladium nanoparticles, that were also prepared by ALD, more strongly than does 1-hexanol. Furthermore, 1-hexanoic acid adsorbs with conformational order on ALD-prepared alumina surfaces, but on surfaces with palladium particles the adsorbates exhibit relative disorder at low surface coverage and become more ordered, on average, at higher surface coverage. Although significant differences in binding constant were not observed between surfaces with and without palladium nanoparticles, the palladium particles play an apparent role in controlling adsorbate structures. The disordered adsorption of 1-hexanoic acid most likely occurs on the alumina support, and probably results from modification of binding sites on the alumina, adjacent to the particles. In addition to providing insight on the possibility of catalyst poisoning by the overoxidation product and characterizing changes in its structure that result in only small adsorption energy changes, this work represents a step toward using surface science techniques that bridge the complexity gap between fundamental studies and realistic catalyst models.

When the solute becomes the solvent: orientation, ordering, and structure of binary mixtures of 1-hexanol and cyclohexane over the (0001) α-Al2O3 surface.

Mixtures of 1-hexanol in cyclohexane over the (0001) α-Al(2)O(3) surface were probed in the CH stretching region using vibrational broadband sum frequency generation (SFG). Below 10 mol % 1-hexanol, the alcohol adsorbs to the surface through interactions that result in observed free adsorption energies of around 14-15 kJ/mol obtained from the Langmuir adsorption model. Polarization-resolved SFG spectra indicate ordering of the alkyl tails with increasing surface coverage. Highly correlated with the ordering of 1-hexanol is an orientational change of the cyclohexane solvent from flat to most likely tilted, suggesting that cyclohexane mediates the adsorption of 1-hexanol via intercalation. Above 10 mol %, the SFG signals for 1-hexanol and cyclohexane decrease with increasing concentration of 1-hexanol, consistent with the notion that cyclohexane is excluded from the interfacial region while 1-hexanol becomes increasingly disordered. At the interface, the alcohol solute becomes the solvent at a mole fraction of only 10%, i.e., five times below what is considered the solute-to-solvent mole fraction transition in the bulk. These results provide an important benchmark for theory, inform reaction design, and demonstrate that bulk thermodynamic properties of binary mixtures are not directly transferable to interfacial environments.

Atmospheric heterogeneous stereochemistry.

While many biogenic and anthropogenic organic constituents in the atmosphere are surface-active and chiral, the role of stereochemistry in heterogeneous oxidation chemistry in the atmosphere has not yet been evaluated. Here, we present nonlinear vibrational surface spectra of fused silica substrates functionalized with quinuclidine diastereomers during exposure to 10(11) to 10(13) molecules of ozone per cm(3) in 1 atm helium to model ozone-limited and ozone-rich tropospheric conditions. Kinetic studies show that diastereomers that orient their reactive C=C double bonds toward the gas phase exhibit heterogeneous ozonolysis rate constants that are 2 times faster than diastereomers that orient their C=C double bonds away from the gas phase. Insofar as our laboratory model studies are representative of real world environments, our studies suggest that the propensity of aerosol particles coated with chiral semivolatile organic compounds to react with ozone may depend on stereochemistry. We expect that the differences in chemical accessibility will lead to the enrichment of one oxidation product stereoisomer over the other. The oxidation products could be gaseous or surface-bound, indicating that kinetic resolution could lead to the stereochemical enrichment of the gas phase or the aerosol, which may have also been important in prebiotic chemistry. Implications of these results for chiral markers that would allow for source appointments of anthropogenic versus biogenic carbon emissions are discussed.

Heterogeneous ozone oxidation reactions of 1-pentene, cyclopentene, cyclohexene, and a menthenol derivative studied by sum frequency generation.

We report vibrational sum frequency generation (SFG) spectra of glass surfaces functionalized with 1-pentene, 2-hexene, cyclopentene, cyclohexene, and a menthenol derivative. The heterogeneous reactions of ozone with hydrocarbons covalently linked to oxide surfaces serve as models for studying heterogeneous oxidation of biogenic terpenes adsorbed to mineral aerosol surfaces commonly found in the troposphere. Vibrational SFG is also used to track the C=C double bond oxidation reactions initiated by ozone in real time and to characterize the surface-bound product species. Combined with contact angle measurements carried out before and after ozonolysis, the kinetic and spectroscopic studies presented here suggest reaction pathways involving vibrationally hot Criegee intermediates that compete with pathways that involve thermalized surface species. Kinetic measurements suggest that the rate limiting step in the heterogeneous C=C double bond oxidation reactions is likely to be the formation of the primary ozonide. From the determination of the reactive uptake coefficients, we find that ozone molecules undergo between 100 and 10000 unsuccessful collisions with C=C double bonds before the reaction occurs. The magnitude of the reactive uptake coefficients for the cyclic and linear olefins studied here does not follow the corresponding gas-phase reactivities but rather correlates with the accessibility of the C=C double bonds at the surface.

Photochemistry of the indoor air pollutant acetone on Degussa P25 TiO2 studied by chemical ionization mass spectrometry.

We have used chemical ionization mass spectrometry (CIMS) to study the adsorption and photochemistry of several oxygenated organic species adsorbed to Degussa P25 TiO2, an inexpensive catalyst that can be used to mineralize volatile organic compounds. The molecules examined in this work include the common indoor air pollutant acetone and several of its homologs and possible oxidation and condensation products that may be formed during the adsorption and/or photocatalytic degradation of acetone on titanium dioxide catalysts. We report nonreactive uptake coefficients for acetone, formic acid, acetic acid, mesityl oxide, and diacetone alcohol, and results from photochemical studies that quantify, on a per-molecule basis, the room-temperature photocatalytic conversion of the species under investigation to CO2 and related oxidation products. The data presented here imply that catalytic surfaces that enhance formate and acetate production from acetone precursors will facilitate the photocatalytic remediation of acetone in indoor environments, even at room temperature.