Reactivity screening of silica

As a screening of the chemical activity of silica [SiO2/Si(1 0 0)], which is one of the most often used supports for nanostructures, thermal desorption spectroscopy data have been gathered for a variety of gases such as n-nonane, n-hexane, n-butane, iso-butane, ethane, CO2, CO, O2, and H/H2. Whereas, the alkanes with chain lengths larger than three adsorb with large binding energies (Ed = 50-70 kJ/mol), the activity towards the other probe molecules is negligible (<24 kJ/mol) down to adsorption temperatures of 95 K. The adsorption of n- and iso-butane has additionally been studied by molecular beam scattering and follows standard precursor mediated adsorption dynamics.