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Abstract

The temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) of N₂ from a multiply promoted iron catalyst used for ammonia synthesis has been studied in a microreactor system at atmospheric pressure. From TPD experiments with various heating rates a preexponential factorA = 2 × 10⁹ molecules/site s and an activation energyE = 146 kJ/mol was derived assuming second-order desorption. The observed dependence of the TPD peak shapes on the heating rates indicated the influence of readsorption of N₂ in agreement with the results obtained for various initial coverages. Simulating the N₂ TPD curves using the model by Stoltze and Nørskov revealed that the calculated TPD curves were not influenced by the molecular precursor to desorption. However, the calculated rate of readsorption was found to be overestimated at high coverage compared with the experimental results. A coverage-dependent net activation energy for dissociative chemisorption (E*) was introduced as the simplest assumption rendering the dissociative chemisorption of N₂ activated at high coverage. The best fit of the experimental data yieldedE* = (−15+30θ) kJ/mol using only a single type of atomic nitrogen species. These findings are in satisfactory agreement with the parameters underlying the Stoltze-Nørskov model for the kinetics of ammonia synthesis as well as with the data reported for Fe(111) single crystal surfaces.