Photoemission of adsorbed xenon, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and temperature-programmed desorption studies of H2O on FeS2(100)

The reaction of H2O with the (100) crystallographic plane of pyrite, FeS2, has been investigated in the vacuum environment with photoemission of adsorbed xenon (PAX), temperature-programmed desorption (TPD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). TPD data indicate that H2O desorbs from FeS2(100) in a broad range of temperatures (150-300 K). XPS data suggests that the vast majority of H2O that initially adsorbs on pyrite at 79 K desorbs from pyrite during thermal annealing to 300 K. PAX, a technique that is sensitive to the short range order of a surface, has been used to elucidate the types of sites that are available on FeS2(100) for the binding of adsorbate. Within the resolution of our PAX data, the surface of FeS2(100) consists of at least two types of sites. It is proposed that these two types of sites are associated with the stoichiometric surface and defect (i.e., sulfur-deficient or anion vacancy) sites. PAX further suggests that at low adsorbate coverage, H2O predominately resides on defect sites. As the coverage of H2O is increased, defect sites become saturated and additional adsorption occurs on the less reactive stoichiometric surface.