Unusual infrared spectrum of ethane adsorbed by gallium oxide

The present study reports an unusual diffuse reflection Fourier transform (DRIFT) spectrum of ethane adsorbed by gallium oxide. One of the stretching C-H bands in this spectrum with a maximum at 2753 cm(-1) is more than by 100 cm(-1) shifted toward lower frequencies in comparison with gaseous ethane. In addition, the relative intensity of this band is unusually high. This indicates a very strong polarizability of the corresponding chemical bonds resulting from perturbation of ethane by the low coordinated Ga(3+) cations. The assignment of this band to the very strongly perturbed initially fully symmetric nu(1) C-H stretching vibration is confirmed by a DFT modeling of ethane adsorption by the simplest Ga(2)O(3) cluster. The obtained results also indicate heterolytic dissociative adsorption and dehydrogenation of ethane by Ga(3+) Lewis sites at elevated temperature. This is evidenced by the appearance of new IR bands from zinc alkyl fragments and acidic protons followed by decomposition of resulting zinc ethyl species. In parallel, the most intense IR band at lower frequency from the most strongly polarized C-H chemical bond decreased in intensity. The obtained results indicate that these vibrations are involved in subsequent heterolytic dissociative adsorption. The obtained results demonstrate that, similar to the shifts of C-H stretching vibrations to the low-frequency, intensities of IR C-H stretching bands can be also used as an index of chemical activation of adsorbed paraffins via their polarization by the low-coordinated cations.