Abstract
Adsorption and reaction of acetic acid on a CeO2(1 1 1) surface was studied by a combination of ultra-highvacuum based methods including temperature desorption spectroscopy (TPD), soft X-ray photoelectronspectroscopy (sXPS), near edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy (NEXAFS) and reflection absorption IRspectroscopy (RAIRS), together with density functional theory (DFT) calculations. TPD shows that thedesorption products are strongly dependent upon the initial oxidation state of the CeO2surface, includingselectivity between acetone and acetaldehyde products. The combination of sXPS and NEXAFS demon-strate that acetate forms upon adsorption at low temperature and is stable to above 500 K, above whichpoint ketene, acetone and acetic acid desorb. DFT and RAIRS show that below 500 K, bridge bondedacetate coexists with a moiety formed by adsorption of an acetate at an oxygen vacancy, formed bywater desorption.