THERMAL-DESORPTION ANALYSIS - COMPARATIVE TEST OF 10 COMMONLY APPLIED PROCEDURES

Simulated thermal desorption spectra have been used to test the performance of ten commonly applied analysis procedures for obtaining the correct activation energy, pre-exponential factor and order of desorption, as a function of adsorbate coverage. In general, simplified procedures based on easily accessible features such as peak maximum temperature, peak width and peak shape, yield unreliable results. The so-called complete methods, however, require considerably more effort, but yield results which are in good agreement with the values used as input for the simulated spectra. © 1990.