Analytical Treatment of a Heterogeneous Reaction

Abstract

An analytical method has been used to study the kinetics of a generic heterogeneous catalytic reaction, A + B → AB. This reaction includes the elementary steps of adsorption and desorption of reactants A and B, surface reaction through the Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism, and desorption of the product AB. Despite its simplicity, this analytical approach shows some of the general features observed by simulating the present mechanism on a large N × N lattice.5–7 The rate of reaction depends on the rate of desorption of reactants with a maximum at a value similar to those found by performing heavy simulations. Coverage fluctuations of reactants, as a function of their rate of desorption on a 2 × 2 lattice, have a behavior similar to that found on large N × N lattices.