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Most chemical reactions on a material surface (catalyst) follow the Langmuir-Hinshelwood scheme: atoms from the surroundings adhere to the material and move randomly across the surface until they meet each other. At that spot the atoms react with each other and are subsequently released from the surface. In Eley-Rideal reactions a particle on the surface instead reacts directly with an atom from the surroundings that is rapidly moving past it. According to the theory, this type of reaction takes place most easily with light, rapidly moving atoms. In practice, the Eley-Rideal reaction has only been demonstrated with the lightest atom, hydrogen. The team from DIFFER, the Materials innovation institute M2i and the Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences in Amsterdam have now demonstrated for the first time that heavier atoms such as nitrogen and oxygen can also undergo an Eley-Rideal reaction.
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