Reconstructing stochastic attractors from nanoscale experiments on a non-equilibrium reaction

Area of Science:

• Surface science
• Chemical kinetics
• Nanoscale catalysis

Background:

• Understanding catalytic reactions on platinum is crucial for industrial applications.
• Kinetic instabilities and oscillations are complex phenomena in chemical reactions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the catalytic NO2(g) + H2(g)/Pt system using field emission microscopy (FEM).
• To analyze the emergence of kinetic instabilities and oscillations in nanoscale catalytic systems.

Main Methods:

• Field Emission Microscopy (FEM) for nanoscale spatial resolution.
• Time series analyses and numerical simulations.
• Stochastic simulations of a proposed chemical model.

Main Results:

• Non-reactive catalyst surface at low H2 pressure.
• Observed bursts of activity and self-sustained periodic oscillations with increasing H2 pressure.
• Identified a crater-like structure in probability space, indicating a noise-perturbed limit cycle.

Conclusions:

• The experimental system exhibits a noise-perturbed limit cycle, characteristic of dynamical systems.
• These findings provide insights into the behavior of reactive nanosystems.
• The study bridges experimental observations with theoretical models of chemical dynamics.