A kinetic model of reactive crystal surfaces A Kinetic Model of Reactive Crystal Surfaces

A kinetic model describing chemical reactions on a crystal surface is introduced. The Boltzmann equations involve particles interacting with potentials generated by fixed crystal particles and interacting with a phonon gas describing the fluctuating part of the potentials. Chemical reactions between gas/physisorbed, chemisorbed and crystal species are taken into account. The phonons are assumed to be at equilibrium for the sake of simplicity. A modified kinetic entropy is introduced for the coupled system and the H theorem is established. Using a fluid scaling and the Chapman-Enskog asymptotic method, species fluid boundary conditions involving heterogeneous reactions are recovered at the surface.