Surface study of supported metal particles by 129Xe NMR.

The surfaces of platinum clusters in the supercages of NaY zeolite have been studied by {sup 129}Xe NMR over the temperature range 80--293 K. The sensitivity of this weakly perturbing technique makes it possible to reveal the heterogeneity of the electronic structure of the particle surface. The temperature dependence of the {sup 129}Xe spin-lattice relaxation indicates that the surface sites with the highest adsorption energy possess metallic character.