Copyright and reuse:Sussex Research Online is a digital repository of the research output of the University.Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable, the material made available in SRO has been checked for eligibility before being made available.Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. Reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy ͑RAIRS͒ and temperature programed desorption ͑TPD͒ have been used to probe the adsorption and desorption of ethanol on highly ordered pyrolytic graphite ͑HOPG͒ at 98 K. RAIR spectra for ethanol show that it forms physisorbed multilayers on the surface at 98 K. Annealing multilayer ethanol ices ͑exposures Ͼ50 L͒ beyond 120 K gives rise to a change in morphology before crystallization within the ice occurs. TPD shows that ethanol adsorbs and desorbs molecularly on the HOPG surface and shows four different species in desorption. At low coverage, desorption of monolayer ethanol is observed and is described by first-order kinetics. With increasing coverage, a second TPD peak is observed at a lower temperature, which is assigned to an ethanol bilayer. When the coverage is further increased, a second multilayer, less strongly bound to the underlying ethanol ice film, is observed. This peak dominates the TPD spectra with increasing coverage and is characterized by fractional-order kinetics and a desorption energy of 56.3Ϯ 1.7 kJ mol −1 . At exposures exceeding 50 L, formation of crystalline ethanol is also observed as a high temperature shoulder on the TPD spectrum at 160 K.

We have recorded reflection–absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS) and temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) data for a range of CO 2 -bearing model astrophysical ices adsorbed on a graphitic dust grain analogue surface. Data have been recorded for pure CO 2 , for CO 2 adsorbed on top of amorphous solid water, for mixed CO 2 :H 2 O ices and for CO 2 adsorbed on top of a mixed CH 3 OH:H 2 O ice. For the TPD data, kinetic parameters for desorption have been determined, and the trapping behaviour of the CO 2 in the H 2 O (CH 3 OH) ice has been determined. Data of these types are important as they can be used to model desorption in a range of astrophysical environments. RAIR spectra have also shown the interaction of the CO 2 with H 2 O and CH 3 OH and can be used to compare with astronomical observations, allowing the accurate assignment of spectra.

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