MCTS at NTNU

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Marie Curie Training Site

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The Surface as a Catalyst/ Barrier to Chemical and Physical Processes

Fig: Water drops with surfactant molecules in a gasphase (click on figure to see it in motion)

NEW! From 1 May 2004, nationals from the 10 EU Applicant States are also eligible!

Many questions are still unresolved, when it comes to understanding the dynamics of processes at surfaces. What are the rate-limiting steps at a surface? What are the surface rate coefficients?
How do we define them? Why do they differ from bulk coefficients?
Does the surface have a temperature?

In order to obtain answers to such questions, it is important to do series of experiments where new variables are introduced and tested systematically. Equilibrium properties must be investigated, and transport properties must be measured or calculated. When the equilibrium state is known, one may understand the non-equilibrium situation.

It is furthermore not only a question of having detailed molecular insight into the particular processes.
In order to make the insight useful in engineering, it is necessary to find methods that properly brings the description from the nanometer to the micrometer scale, or even the macroscopic scale. Such methods of integration link molecular science to the engineering world. Assumptions that are standard in engineering, i.e. about equilibrium, are now questioned with the emerging knowledge about transport at surfaces.

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Applications can be submitted on a continuously open basis.

Supervisors

Editor: Head of Unit Contact address: signekj@chem.ntnu.no Updated: 4 March 2004