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Abstract

The solid-gas interaction controls key processes such as heterogeneous catalysis or atmospheric chemistry mechanisms requiring advanced experimental approaches to reveal the electronic structure of these systems under realistic conditions. In this way, the electronic structure of a solid becomes more complicated when its surface interacts with the external environment. At the interface, a surface atom can interact with neighbors, near-surface native atoms and with atmosphere molecules. This fact implies that the properties of the surface atoms are significantly different from those of atoms in the bulk, even more in presence of gases. X-ray absorption spectroscopy is a valuable technique to obtain information of the local electronic structure of a target element. Unfortunately, it is not directly compatible with dense gas media requiring usually vacuum for its operation in the soft X-ray regimen. In this chapter we report on the most recent advances in this field using soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), which provides chemical information of a solid sample of interest under realistic environmental gas-phase conditions.