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Adsorption of ammonia on treated stainless steel and polymer surfaces

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Abstract

Adsorption of dynamically diluted ammonia at part-per-billion to low part-per-million concentrations in dry nitrogen was studied with treated and non-treated stainless steel and polymer test tubes. The treatments included electropolishing and two types of coatings based on amorphous silicon. Cavity ring-down spectroscopy with an external cavity diode laser operating in the near-infrared wavelength range was used to monitor the adsorption process in real time in continuous-flow conditions to obtain quantitative assessment of the adsorptive properties of the studied surfaces. The investigated polymers were all less adsorptive than any of the treated or non-treated stainless steel surfaces. Some of the commercial coatings reduced the adsorption loss of stainless steel by a factor of ten or more. Polyvinylidene fluoride was found to be superior (less adsorption) to the four other studied polymer coatings. The number of adsorbed ammonia molecules per surface area obtained at different ammonia gas phase concentrations was modeled with Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. The time behavior of the adsorption–desorption process occurring in the time scale of seconds and minutes was simulated with a simple kinetic model.

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Acknowledgments

This work is part of European Metrology Research Programme (EMRP) Joint Research Project (JRP) “Metrology for Chemical Pollutants in Air”—MACPoll (www.macpoll.eu). O. V. operated as a Research Excellency Grant (REG) beneficiary in the Project. The research was carried out with funding by EURAMET and the European Union. The EMRP is jointly funded by the EMRP participating countries within EURAMET and the European Union. Academy of Finland is thanked for financial support. SilcoTek Corporation is thanked for providing detailed information about their coatings and for offering the test tube coatings free of charge.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Physical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, A.I. Virtasen aukio 1, P.O. Box 55, 00014, University of Helsinki, Finland

    O. Vaittinen, M. Metsälä, M. Vainio & L. Halonen

  2. VSL, Thijsseweg 11, 2629 JA, Delft, The Netherlands

    S. Persijn

  3. Centre for Metrology and Accreditation (MIKES), Tekniikantie 1, P.O. Box 9, 02151, Espoo, Finland

    M. Vainio

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  1. O. Vaittinen
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  2. M. Metsälä
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  4. M. Vainio
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  5. L. Halonen
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Correspondence to M. Metsälä.

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Vaittinen, O., Metsälä, M., Persijn, S. et al. Adsorption of ammonia on treated stainless steel and polymer surfaces. Appl. Phys. B 115, 185–196 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-013-5590-3

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