Prof. Dr. Eckart Hasselbrink

Project B5 will study in situ the adsorbates at the surface of a spinel and/or perovskite-type catalyst in gas and liquid phase reactions. This goal can be achieved by applying non-linear optics, which can provide vibrational sum frequency generation spectroscopy, which is solely sensitive to molecules at interfaces. This method shall disclose the composition, the charge and the binding state of the adspecies layer at the surface of the catalysts as a function of operating conditions. In combination with pulsed laser excitation this technique will prospectively gain insight into the fundamental excitation transfer steps between photon absorber, cocatalyst and reactants in photocatalysis.