The role of defects on oxide surfaces has always been considered crucial. Unfortunately, the experimental technique upon which this progress is largely based, STM, cannot be applied to powders, the technologically most important form of oxide materials, making the transfer of knowledge form well-defined reference systems also suited as an interface to powder materials difficult. As a result, the so-called Surface Science Approach, has been severely hampered with regard to understanding reactions on oxide surfaces.Here, we present a novel method capable of investigating oxygen vacancies on both, surfaces of oxide single crystals and on powder particles [1]. We will demonstrate that the presence of defect sites on surfaces of rutile TiO2 (r-TiO2) can be directly identified by IR spectroscopy (UHV-FTIRS) using CO as a probe molecule.References [1]    M. Xu, H. Noei, K. Fink, M. Muhler, Y. Wang, Ch. W�ll, Angewandte Chemie 2012, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201200585.

Surface Science Approach for understanding reactions on oxide powders: The importance of IR spectroscopy

244th National Meeting (2012)

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