Development of new catalytic materials for sensing, decontamination, and personnel protection against chemical warfare agents (CWAs) is a persistent need for the warfighter and civilian emergency response crews. Understanding the fate of toxic chemicals and their simulants on catalyst surfaces is critical for assessing efficacy, lifetime, and robustness under relevant “real-world” conditions. Many analytical techniques are available to study surface chemistry under high-vacuum conditions and on pristine single-crystalline surfaces. However, reaction conditions and ideal materials used in the laboratory are usually more controlled and cleaner" than in typical use case scenarios, which may limit the utility of the data. Long a staple of the surface scientist’s toolkit, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is a powerful technique that provides quantitative chemical and elemental information about the surface of solid materials. Originally limited to high-vacuum conditions, advances in instrumentation hardware have made XPS adaptable to studying chemical reactions at vapor-solid interfaces under in situ and operando conditions. The ability to perform experiments during exposure of a surface to select gas molecules and mixtures at relevant vapor pressures makes ambient-pressure XPS (APXPS) a valuable technique for investigating chemical reactions under “messier”, more realistic conditions. This presentation will provide an overview of the technical and analytical capabilities of current APXPS instrumentation relevant for studies of CWAs and CWA simulants. Specifically, I will discuss operando synchrotron experiments probing the interaction of the CWA simulant dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP) at copper and molybdenum oxide surfaces to demonstrate the utility of APXPS in this field. I will also present common challenges associated with XPS, including adventitious carbon contamination, surface charging, and quantitative spectral analysis, and how APXPS is inherently suited to help address these issues.

Intentionally messy surface science: Applying ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to study chemical warfare agent simulant interactions with solid surfaces

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.