Abstract
The coadsorption of different molecules on simple surfaces provides the opportunity to examine problems that do not occur in single component adsorption systems. To understand cooperative adsorption phenomena at a fundamental level, we have measured the low-coverage desorption of NO from a Pt(111) surface precovered with up to 10% of a monolayer (ML) of CO. The data exhibit a pronounced kinetic compensation, characterized by a compensation temperature of ∼ 335 K. We apply a transfer matrix analysis that extracts meaningful information about surface-mediated CO-NO interactions. The analysis illuminates a direct connection between lateral interaction energies, kinetic compensation, and enhanced versus competitive adsorption.