Transition metal oxides form a series of compounds with a uniquely wide range of electronic properties. They have important applications as dielectrics,semiconductors, and metals, and as materials for magnetic and optical uses. The recent discovery of `high temperature' superconductors has brought the attention of a wide scientific community to this area and has highlighted the problems involved in trying to understand transition metal oxides. The present book is not primarily about Tc superconductors, although their main properties are discussed in the final sections. The main aim is to describe the varied electronic behaviour shown by transition metal oxides, and to discuss the different types of theoretical model that have been proposed to interpret it. It is intended to provide an introduction to this fascinating and difficult field, at a level suitable for graduate students and other research workers with a background in solid- state chemistry or physics.

The book is a multi-author survey (in 15 chapters) of the current state of knowledge and recent developments in our understanding of oxide surfaces. The author list includes most of the acknowledged world experts in this field. The material covered includes fundamental theory and experimental studies of the geometrical, vibrational and electronic structure of such surfaces, but with a special emphasis on the chemical properties and associated reactivity. The main focus is on metal oxides but coverage extends from 'simple' rocksalt materials such as MgO through to complex transition metal oxides with different valencies.

Publisher Description

This book presents the basics and characterization of defects at oxide surfaces. It provides a state-of-the-art review of the field, containing information to the various types of surface defects, describes analytical methods to study defects, their chemical activity and the catalytic reactivity of oxides. Numerical simulations of defective structures complete the picture developed. Defects on planar surfaces form the focus of much of the book, although the investigation of powder samples also form an important part. The experimental study of planar surfaces opens the possibility of applying the large armoury of techniques that have been developed over the last half-century to study surfaces in ultra-high vacuum. This enables the acquisition of atomic level data under well-controlled conditions, providing a stringent test of theoretical methods. The latter can then be more reliably applied to systems such as nanoparticles for which accurate methods of characterization of structure and electronic properties have yet to be developed. The book gives guidance to tailor oxide surfaces by controlling the nature and concentration of defects. The importance of defects in the physics and chemistry of metal oxide surfaces is presented in this book together with the prominent role of oxides in common life. The book contains contributions from leaders in the field. It serves as a reference for experts and beginners in the field.

In this book the author presents an up-to-date summary of existing information on the structure, electronic properties, chemistry and catalytic properties of transition metal oxides.The subjects covered in the book can be divided into three sections. The first (chapters 1 to 3) covers the structural, physical, magnetic, and electronic properties of transition metal oxides. Although the emphasis is on surface properties, relevant bulk properties are also discussed. The second section (chapters 4 to 7) covers surface chemical properties. It includes topics that describe the importance of surface coordinative unsaturation in adsorption, the formation of surface acidity and the role of acidity in determining surface chemical properties, the nature and reactivities of adsorbed oxygen, and the surface chemistry in the reduction of oxides. The third section (chapters 8 to 14) is on the catalytic properties. Various catalytic reactions including decomposition, hydrogenation, isomerization, metathesis, selective oxidation, and reactions involving carbon oxides are discussed. Emphasis is placed more on reaction mechanisms and the role of catalysts than on kinetics and processes. Chapters on the preparation of oxide catalysts and on photo-assisted processes are also included. Whenever appropriate, relationships between various topics are indicated.Written for surface physicists, chemists, and catalytic engineers, the book will serve as a useful source of information for investigators and as a comprehensive overview of the subject for graduate students.

Imagine that a young physicist would approach a granting agen cy and propose to contribute to heterogeneous catalysis by studying the heat conductivity of gases in contact with a hot filament. How would he be received now? How would he have been treated sixty years ago ? Yet, more than sixty years ago, Irving Langmuir, through his study of heat transfer from a tungsten filament, uncovered most of the fundamental ideas which are used to-day by the scientific com munity in pure and applied heterogeneous catalysis. Through his work with what were for the first time "clean" metal surfaces, Langmuir formulated during a period of a little over ten years un til the early thirties, the concepts of chemisorption, monolayer, adsorption sites, adsorption isotherm, sticking probability, cata lytic mechanisms by way of the interaction between chemisorbed spe cies, behavior of non-uniform surfaces and repulsion between adsor bed dipoles. It is fair to say that many of these ideas constituting the first revolution in surface chemistry have since been refined through thousands of investigations. Countless papers have been pu blished on the subject of the Langmuir adsorption isotherm, the Langmuir catalytic kinetics and the Langmuir site-exclusion adsorp tion kinetics. The refinements have been significant. ThE original concepts in their primitive or amended form are used everyday by catalytic chemists and chemical engineers allover the world in their treatment of experimental data, design of reactors or inven tion of new processes.