Physisorption of ammonia on AISI 304L stainless steel at different surface temperature under high vacuum conditions

Abstract

The physisorption of ammonia molecules (sticking) on the walls of a stainless steel pipe (AISI 304L) has been studied at different wall temperatures (323-473K). The total amount of ammonia that is retained on the walls, once equilibrium is reached, has been measured by differentially-pumped mass spectrometry in gas exposure laboratory experiments. The results show ammonia retentions in the range of μg/cm2 resulting in a multilayer adsorption with lower amounts of stuck ammonia at higher temperatures of the stainless steel surface. The sticking coefficient follows an exponential decay evolution with time. The activation energy of the process has been estimated by an Arrhenius fit, assuming that the characteristic time for this decay is inversely proportional to the kinetic adsorption constant. A value of 0.15eV per ammonia molecule has been obtained, being in agreement with nominal values for the physisorption of small molecules or atoms (CO, N2, Ar…) that can be found in the specialized literature. The implication of these results in the possible extrapolation to the ITER vacuum system under nitrogen seeded plasma operation is also addressed.

Keywords

• Nitrogen seeding
• Ammonia
• Physisorption
• AISI 304L SS