Polarising Ability of the Metal Surface Atoms of a Catalyst and the Work Function

Abstract

An attempt was made to determine the polarising ability of metal surface atoms. On the basis of an analysis of the metal cohesive energy and the electron binding energy in ionic cores, a new parameter was proposed called the polarising ability of surface atoms as defined by the equation:Psurf=(αΔGsubM0EEBE)1/2/Rr/aowhere EEBE denotes the electron binding energy at the outermost shell of the ionic core, the product (αδG0sub) determines the surface Gibbs energy that is proportional (the quantity α denoting the proportionality factor) to the standard Gibbs energy of sublimation of the metal (δG0subM), r is the metallic radius (half the length of the metallic bond), ao is the radius of the first Bohr orbit and R is the Rydberg constant.It was shown that the above parameter is proportional to the work function and that, in a similar fashion to the ionisation energy of ions, this can indicate the polarising ability of the surface atoms. The correlation between the polarising ability parameter and the initial he...