The bonding of acetone on Cu(1 1 1)

The structure and bonding of acetone on Cu(1 1 1) has been probed using a combination of temperature programmed desorption, UV photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) and normal incidence X-ray standing wavefield absorption (NIXSW). Acetone was found to interact very weakly with Cu(1 1 1). This is evidenced by UPS data, which showed no significant perturbation of the electronic structure of acetone upon adsorption. NIXSW data is consistent with acetone adsorbing to the surface via the oxygen with an atop local registry in a η1(O) configuration. The observed Cu–O distance of 2.73 ± 0.16 Å is close to the expected van der Waals separation (2.93 Å). The local registry determined in the present study is consistent with that predicted in previous theoretical work.