The adsorption of amines on metal surfaces is very important in catalysis and surface coating chemistry. As the simplest organic amine, methylamine draws considerable interest in the hope of understanding the fundamental reactions of C-H, N-H and C-N activation on different surfaces. Since methylamine can be considered as a derivative of ammonia, a comparison of NH3 and CH3NH2 surface chemistry is of interest to determine the influence of the CH3group on the respective N-H bond breaking reactions.Reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy and temperature programmed desorption (TPD) were used to characterize and identify the surface intermediates formed in the thermal decomposition of methylamine (CH3NH2) on Ru(0001). Methylamine is found to adsorb molecularly to the surface via the nitrogen lone pair up to ~220 K, in agreement with a previous study using high resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy and TPD. Between 220 and 250 K, cleavage of N-H and C-H bonds produces H2CNH, possibly with the C-N axis parallel to the surface. Upon annealing to above 300 K, this species is further dehydrogenated and produces an HxCN intermediate, which can subsequently be dehydrogenated to a surface C-N species when annealed to even higher temperatures.

Surface chemistry of methylamine on Ru(0001)

246th National Meeting (2013)

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