An investigation of the interaction of polycrystalline zirconium with O2, N2, CO and N2O

Abstract

The chemisorption of oxygen at room temperature on polycrystalline zirconium has been studied using AES and ESCA as a function of sample pretreatment. It is shown that annealing at high temperature greatly reduces the ability of zirconium to chemisorb oxygen but that its activity can be restored by argon-ion bombardment. This suggests that chemisorption may be site specific and that the concentration of these sites can be manipulated by varying sample pretreatment.