Paper SS-TuP14
Vibrational Effects on Precursor Mediated Surface Reactions

Tuesday, October 16, 2007, 6:00 pm, Room 4C

At high translational energies, methane dissociation on metal surfaces is generally shown to be dominated by a direct mechanism. The majority of methane molecules in a steam-reforming reactor have little translational energy, but are vibrationally excited. The vibrational energy content of these molecules is significant relative to the barrier to dissociation. In contrast, low translational energy molecules in conventional beam surface experiments are predominantly in the vibrational ground state. We propose experiments to explore the possibility that a precursor mechanism involving vibrationally excited molecules may be an important contributor to methane activation on metal surfaces at the high temperatures characteristic of industrial steam reforming reactors.