Book Description

Our studies of the magnetic phase dependence of chemical reactions includes both an experimental and a theoretical program. We describe below progress made during the funding period of the grant in both the experimental and theoretical programs. The experimental program focused firstly on repeating previously reported observations of a strong, oscillatory magnetic field dependence of a chemical reaction, the carbonylation of Ni to form nickel carbonyl. Using a more sensitive experimental system than that of the previous workers, we were not able to repeat their reported results. The second experimental program focused on the observation of a change in reaction rate and activation energy of the chemical reaction due to a magnetic phase transition of the reacting substrate. This phenomenon was conveniently studied using nickel copper alloys to vary the Curie temperature. Cluster calculations for the energy levels showed that the addition of a single carbon monoxide group fills the d shell and leads to a diamagnetic complex. The third experimental program addressed the observation of the Hedvall effect in a reaction where the magnetic species was purely catalytic, namely the hydrogenation of ethylene on nickel copper surfaces. The theoretical modeling was carried out with a spin polarized calculation of the energy levels of an ethylene molecule bound to a nickel cluster.