Time evolution of a catalytic surface reaction: oxidation of carbon monoxide

Abstract

An irreversible kinetic surface reaction based upon the oxidation of carbon monoxide exhibits both a second-order and a first-order phase transition. The authors study the time evolution of this reaction near and slightly above the first-order transition by Monte Carlo simulation. It is seen that oxygen concentration, for low coverages, decays exponentially with time. Near the transition the average relaxation time is found to diverge as tau CO varies as mod X2-XCO mod gamma with gamma =3.54. Here XCO is the composition of carbon monoxide in the gas phase and X2 is the value of this concentration at the transition point.