Abstract
The adsorption and reactions of methanol are of considerable technological relevance for the direct methanol fuel cell. Thereby, the stability of intermediates and activation barriers of the various reaction pathways depend critically on specific properties of the substrate materials. Deposition of ultrathin metal layers represents an established means to tune these in a controlled way. In the present study, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and temperature-programmed desorption have been employed to study the thermal evolution of adsorbed methanol on Ru(0001) precovered by Cu. While the full Cu monolayer turns out to be inert in the absence of coadsorbates such as oxygen, various reaction intermediates are discernible for ΘCu < 1 ML. In the temperature range 220−300 K, two upright methoxy species (local C3v symmetry) on uncovered Ru(0001) areas and on Cu/Ru(0001) can be distinguished. The local methoxy coverage on the Cu monolayer amounts to about 0.04 ML which is half the value found on Ru(0001). ...
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