Silver Catalyst for Partial Oxidation of Methanol. Reaction Path and Catalyst Poisoning by Iron. A Combined SIMS, TDMS, AES, XPS and ISS Study

Formaldehyde formation from methanol on silver catalysts is a well-known technical process, but only parts of the elementary steps of this reaction are known. In previous work /1/ we have shown that the characteristics of the silver-oxygen adsorption system play an important role in this catalytic reaction. We therefore investigated in detail the adsorption and reaction kinetics of both oxygen and methanol on silver by combined SIMS, TDMS, AES, XPS, and ISS. For reasons of brevity, only SIMS and TDMS results will be presented here. The experiments were performed in a combined surface analytical and microreactor instrument, which has been described in full detail elsewhere /2/.