The Behavior of Iodine in Adsorption and Desorption by Graphite

Abstract

Using tracer technique, studies were undertaken on the adsorption of iodine on natural graphite at temperatures ranging from 27° to 900°C under pressures from 0.03 to 1.4 mmHg, and on the desorption of adsorbed iodine from the same specimens into either vacuum or Ar stream. The specimens were heated up either isothermally, stepwise, or at constant rate of temperature rise, up to 1,100°C. The resulting data accorded well with a theoretical treatment presuming desorption from heterogeneous surface, considering the desorption as an n-th order irreversible reaction having distributed activation energies. The iodine is considered to be held on the graphite by physical adsorption below about 450° C, and above that temperature, by chemisorption through bond formation between iodine and carbon atoms. The heat of adsorption and the activation energy of desorption obtained was found to be a function of surface coverage. The presence of Ar gas was observed to inhibit chemisorption of iodine and to decrease the activ...