Abstract
Molecular hydrogen has two nuclear-spin modifications called ortho and para. Because of the symmetry restriction with respect to permutation of the two protons, the ortho and para isomers take only odd and even values of the rotational quantum number, respectively. The ortho-to-para conversion is promoted in condensed systems, to which the excess rotational energy and spin angular momentum are transferred. We review recent studies on fast ortho-to-para conversion of hydrogen in molecular chemisorption and matrix isolation systems, discussing the conversion mechanism as well as rotational-relaxation pathways.
1 Introduction
Molecular hydrogen has a remarkable feature of nuclear-spin isomers. According to the quantum number I of the total nuclear spin, a hydrogen molecule has two modifications called ortho (I = 1) and para (I = 0) species. Because of the symmetry restriction, ortho (para) H2 takes only odd (even) values of the rotational quantum number J. Whereas the transition between ortho and para species is strictly forbidden in the isolated state, it is significantly promoted upon interaction with other substances. Because the nuclear-spin isomers are identified by I and J, the ortho-to-para (o-p) conversion of H2 involves two aspects of the nuclear-spin flip and the rotational-energy transfer to a surface or a surrounding material.
The gas-surface energy transfer has been one of the main topics in surface physics and chemistry; a typical example is the adsorption event, where the translational and adsorption energy of a molecule is transferred to a surface. In addition to the translational energy, internal degrees of freedom such as molecular vibration and rotation are also of considerable importance. Owing to the advance in laser techniques, the relaxation processes of vibrationally-excited molecules have been well studied to date (; ; ; ; ; ). Compared to the vibration, on the other hand, the energy transfer from the molecular rotation to surface degrees of freedom has been poorly understood. One promising approach for the elucidation of the rotational-energy transfer is to investigate the o-p conversion of H2 on surfaces and in matrices. After adsorption on a cold surface or trapping in a matrix, ortho (para) H2 predominantly occupies its lowest rotational level with J = 1 (J = 0). Upon o-p conversion of H2, the rotational-energy needs to be dissipated into surface or matrix degrees of freedom.
The o-p conversion of H2 has been observed on various systems (). The o-p conversion is closely related to the quest for efficient ways of the H2 storage (), and therefore is being investigated not only on surfaces but also inside solids (; ; ) and nano-cages (; ; ). Stimulated by the development of the experimental investigations, several conversion mechanisms have been also proposed depending on the interacting materials (): the Wigner model (), where the proton spin interacts with the inhomogeneous magnetic field generated by localized paramagnetic ions; the electron-spin-induced conversion models categorized into the second- () and third-order () perturbation theories, where the virtual electron exchange or transfer between H2 and a surface is involved along with the Fermi contact interaction between an electron and a proton in H2; the electric-field-induced conversion model (), where the Stark, spin-orbit, and Fermi-contact couplings mix the ortho and para states.
In spite of the extensive studies on the H2o-p conversion in the last decades, there still remain controversial issues; one is fast conversion and the other is the rotational-energy dissipation. In contrast to the o-p conversion time of ~ 103 s or longer observed on various surfaces and in solids, H2o-p conversion with a time constant shorter than ~ 102 s was recently observed on Pd(210) and inside a molecular solid of CO2. On the Pd(210) surface, furthermore, rotational-energy transfer was investigated in detail taking account of electrons and phonons of surfaces. In this review paper, we expound the studies of the fast o-p conversion in a CO2 matrix (Section 2) and on Pd(210) (Section 3), discussing the spin and rotational-energy transfer.
2 Matrix isolation system
The techniques of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), neutron scattering, Raman spectroscopy, and infrared absorption spectroscopy have been applied to in situ observation of the H2 conversion in fullerene (C60) (; ; ), metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) (), porous coordination polymers (), semiconductors (; ; ), and viscous organic solutions (), as was reviewed recently (). Whereas NMR directly probes the nuclear spin, the other methods enable one to resolve the rotational states of ortho- and para-H2. In the nuclear-spin conversion study of polyatomic molecules such as H2O (; ; ), NH3 (; ; ), and CH4 (; ; ), the most popular technique has been rovibrational spectroscopy combined with the matrix-isolation method, where target molecules are isolated in molecular solids, e.g., rare-gas ones. Indeed, the temperature dependence of the conversion rate has been intensively studied in this way to reveal the pathways for the rotational relaxation (; ; ).
Since H2 is the lightest molecule and has a relatively small interaction with matrix molecules, rather low temperatures (typically T < 15 K) are required to suppress its diffusion and formation of aggregates. In previous studies, the ortho and para isomers of H2 have been separately detected in various matrices of Ar, Kr, Xe, N2, and CO by using Raman spectroscopy (; ; ). In particular, Alikhani et al. kept Ar-isolated H2 at 9 K for 24 h and observed no change of the intensity ratio of the ortho and para signals, which means the o-p conversion was suppressed significantly in solid Ar. In contrast, comparing the ratio with a calculated value, the o-p conversion was found to partially proceed just during the sample deposition; they pointed out the possibility that this conversion was catalyzed by O2 impurities. Although H2 has no permanent electric dipole moment, one is able to detect matrix-isolated H2 also by infrared absorption spectroscopy because of its weak polarization. Warren et al. measured infrared spectra of H2 trapped inside Ar, Kr, N2, and CO matrices in the wavenumber regions of pure rotational and vibrational transitions; except for the rotational spectrum of Kr-isolated H2, the ortho and para signals were resolved (). They also found the ortho-to-para ratio of H2 trapped in solid Ar to be decreased by ∼25% after 2–3 days and attributed this o-p conversion to the accidental contamination of magnetic impurities, though the accurate conversion rate was not determined. In a recent study (), H2 was trapped and polarized in solid CO2, so that the conversion rate of H2 was derived from the time evolution of its infrared absorption band, as is expounded below.
The room-temperature gaseous mixture of CO2 and H2 at a molar ratio of CO2/H2 = 100 was condensed onto a gold substrate at 5.4 K for 10 min, and infrared spectra were measured in the reflection configuration. From the film interference pattern appearing in the baseline of the spectrum, the thickness of the CO2 matrix was determined to be 4.5 . Just after the condensation, the spectrum showed not only intense absorption bands of CO2 but also a weak band of H2. At a trapping site of H2, the electric fields generated by surrounding CO2 molecules did not cancel each other out, resulting in slight electric-polarization of H2. The time evolution of the H2 band after the sample deposition is displayed in Figure 1A. The absorption band was well-reproduced by the combination of three gaussian curves: G1 at 4,149 cm−1, G2 at 4,147 cm−1, and G3 at 4,138 cm−1. Whereas G1 grew with increasing time, G3 decayed and finally disappeared. This time development was attributed to the conversion of H2 from ortho to para; in other words, G1 and G3 were assigned to the Q1 (0) and Q1 (1) transitions of para- and ortho-H2, respectively. In the gas phase, the transition energy of Q1 (0), 4,161.1 cm-1, is also higher than that of Q1 (1), 4,155.3 cm−1 (), owing to the rovibrational coupling in H2. As shown in Figure 1B, the integrated intensities of Gm (m = 1, 3) were analyzed as a function of time, and were found to follow the monoexponential function:where and denotes the initial and equilibrium intensities, respectively. The conversion rate derived from G1, , coincided within error with that from G3, .
FIGURE 1
To reveal the origin of G2, Yamakawa et al. also investigated the time evolution of the infrared spectrum just after the sample deposition, as shown in Figure 1C; in the time range of , an additional component, G4, was detected at 4,141 cm−1, and the decay of G4 was observed simultaneously with the growth of G2. Thus, it was likely that there were two kinds of trapping sites for H2 inside solid CO2; while G1 and G3 were attributed to H2 at site A, G2 (G4) was to para (ortho) H2 at site B. The frequency difference between the para and ortho species at site B was about a half of that at site A. This suggests the approach of the lowest rotational levels of ortho- and para-H2 and relatively high anisotropy of the confining potential at site B. Note that the estimated o-p conversion rate at site B was as high as . In a previous study with use of electron-energy-loss spectroscopy, the conversion rate of H2 adsorbed on the stepped surface of Cu(510), where the adsorption potential is strongly anisotropic, was evaluated to be on the order of 1 s (
In most of the condensed systems, the vibrational-frequency shift of H2 with respect to the gas phase, , was negative: () cm-1 at site A (B) of solid CO2 (
Interestingly enough, the conversion time-constants (the inverse of the conversion rate) of H2 in non-magnetic systems accompanied by energy gaps are distributed quite widely: a few or tens of minutes in MOFs (
3 Molecular chemisorption system
As typical adsorption schemes of H2, dissociative chemisorption and molecular physisorption are recognized. In most of past studies on o-p conversion at surfaces, H2 in the physisorption state via the van der Waals interaction was focused, in which the molecule is in a nearly-free rotational state (
The Pd(210) surface has (100) terraces with steps running along the [001] direction forming open (110)-like microfacets. H2 chemisorbs on the step-edge of Pd atoms, so that H2 binds strongly to the surface compared with the physisorption systems (
To track the fast o-p conversion directly, a new experimental method was developed by combining a pulsed molecular beam (MB), photo-stimulated desorption (PSD), and resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI). Figure 2A shows a schematic diagram of the experimental setup and a timing chart of the MB-PSD–REMPI measurement for probing the time evolution of the rotational states of H2 on surfaces (
FIGURE 2

(A) Schematic diagram of the experimental setup and pulse sequence driving the molecular beam and two lasers for the o-p conversion measurement (
Since the o-p conversion is accompanied by the rotational transition as well as the nuclear spin flip, the surface temperature dependence of o-p conversion allows us to investigate the rotational-energy (Erot) transfer process in o-p conversion. The rotational-energy dissipation process has been discussed in previous studies on the o-p conversion of physisorbed H2 on amorphous solid water, silicate and carbon materials (
On the other hand, Pd is a non-magnetic metal, where substrate electrons are expected to play an important role in analogy with the vibrational-energy relaxation. A widely accepted conversion model on a non-magnetic metal surface is the electron-exchange-hyperfine-contact (XY) model proposed by Ilisca (
Recalling the fact that the vibrational energy is transferred to electrons at metal surfaces, this rotational-energy transfer process might be counterintuitive, because Erot is transferred into phonons as well as electrons of surfaces despite a metallic surface. The difference between vibrational- and rotational-energy transfer paths could be ascribed to the energy scale of both degrees of freedom. While the magnitude of the rotational energy of H2 ( ~ 10 meV) is much smaller than the vibrational energy such as the CO stretch mode (∼0.26 eV), that is comparable with the magnitude of the substrate phonon energy. The energy transfer path might be determined by the energy-scale matching between the molecular degree of freedom and surfaces as a receiver.
4 Concluding remarks
We have expounded a recent advance in the o-p conversion study of H2, dealing with the fast conversion in the two novel systems characterized by the matrix isolation and molecular chemisorption. It is notable that the conversion time-scale was ~ 102 s or shorter in spite of the non-magnetic properties of these systems. While a variety of metal oxides have been investigated as the magnetic catalysts of the H2o-p conversion for many decades, expanding needs for the efficient H2 storage and high-performance electrodes for the water electrolysis promotes the studies of H2 interacting with non-magnetic substances such as MOFs and carbon nanomaterials. Since the o-p conversion involving both the spin- and energy-transfers influences the storage and chemical reaction of H2, further studies of the conversion mechanism in the non-magnetic systems are required to reveal the determinant of the conversion time-scale. The anisotropy of a confining potential should be one of the key factors, and the temperature dependence of the conversion rate will provide essential information on the rotational-relaxation pathways also in other systems.
Statements
Author contributions
HU: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing. KF: Writing–review and editing. KY: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing.
Funding
The authors declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI; Grant JP18H05518, JP20K05424, JP20K05337, JP21H04650, JP23H01856, and JP23K04593) and Grant for Basic Science Research Projects from the Sumitomo Foundation. HU was partially supported by MEXT Japan, Leading Initiative for Excellent Young Researchers.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
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Summary
Keywords
hydrogen, nuclear spin, rotational energy, adsorption, surface, matrix isolation
Citation
Ueta H, Fukutani K and Yamakawa K (2023) Fast ortho-to-para conversion of molecular hydrogen in chemisorption and matrix-isolation systems. Front. Chem. 11:1258035. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2023.1258035
Received
13 July 2023
Accepted
27 July 2023
Published
29 August 2023
Volume
11 - 2023
Edited by
Marco Sacchi, University of Surrey, United Kingdom
Reviewed by
Tomás González-Lezana, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain
Masashi Tsuge, Hokkaido University, Japan
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© 2023 Ueta, Fukutani and Yamakawa.
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*Correspondence: Koichiro Yamakawa, yamakawa.koichiro@jaea.go.jp; Hirokazu Ueta, ueta.hirokazu@jaea.go.jp
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All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.