There are a range of techniques for studying surface reactions and molecular adsorption on surfaces which utilise temperature-programming to discriminate between processes with different activation parameters. Of these, the most useful for single crystal studies is:
Temperature Programmed Desorption (TPD)
When the technique is applied to a system in which the adsorption process is, at least in part, irreversible and T-programming leads to surface reactions, then this technique is often known as :
Temperature Programmed Reaction Spectroscopy (TPRS)
However, there is no substantive difference between TPRS and TPD.
The basic experiment is very simple, involving
Adsorption of one or more molecular species onto the sample surface at low temperature (frequently 300 K, but sometimes sub-ambient).
Heating of the sample in a controlled manner (preferably so as to give a linear temperature ramp) whilst monitoring the evolution of species from the surface back into the gas phase.
In modern implementations of the technique the detector of choice is a small, quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS) and the whole process is carried out under computer control with quasi-simultaneous monitoring of a large number of possible products.