The chemistry of formic acid on oxygen modified Ru(0 0 1) surfaces

The effect of oxygen pre-coverage on the chemistry of formic acid on modified Ru(0 0 1) surfaces was analysed by reflection–absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS). The O/Ru(0 0 1) surfaces (θO between 0.25 and 0.6 ML) were exposed to a very low dose (0.05 L) of formic acid at 90 K, and subsequently annealed. A low oxygen pre-coverage (θO = 0.25 ML) promotes the production of the intermediate formate by O–H bond cleavage, at 90 K. On the contrary, high oxygen pre-coverages (θO ⩾ 0.5 ML) inhibit the deprotonation reaction, leading to some physical adsorption of formic acid. At 90 K, monodentate formate was observed on all the O/Ru(0 0 1) surfaces, co-adsorbed with bidentate (C2v) formate or with formic acid, for low or high oxygen pre-coverage, respectively. A thermal activation is required for converting the monodentate into the more stable bidentate formate. This process occurs irreversibly at 100 K (for θO = 0.25 ML) or 110 K (for θO ⩾ 0.5 ML). The stability of bidentate formate is maximized for an oxygen coverage of 0.25 ML, as its initial decomposition temperature increases from 120 K (on the clean surface) to 130 K, dropping again to 120 K for higher oxygen coverages. Since carbon monoxide was detected as a reaction product both on clean and modified surfaces, there is no evidence for a mechanism involving exclusively C–H bond breaking (leading only to CO2) on the oxygen modified surfaces.