Observation of Tunneling in the Hydrogenation of Atomic Nitrogen on the Ru(001) Surface to Form NH

The kinetics of NH and ND formation and dissociation reactions on Ru(001) were studied using time-dependent reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS). Our results indicate that NH and ND formation and dissociation on Ru(001) follow first-order kinetics. In our reaction temperature range (320–390 K for NH and 340–390 K for ND), the apparent activation energies for NH and ND formation were found to be 72.2 ± 1.9 and 87.1 ± 1.8 kJ/mol, respectively, while NH and ND dissociation reactions between 370 and 400 K have apparent activation barriers of 106.9 ± 4.1 and 101.8 ± 4.8 kJ/mol, respectively. The lower apparent activation energy for NH formation than that for ND as well as the comparison between experimentally measured isotope effects with theoretical results strongly indicates that tunneling already starts to play a role in this reaction at a temperature as high as 340 K