Thermal decomposition of (NH₄)₂[PdCl₆] studied by in situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy

In situ X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) investigations were carried out at chlorine K edge and palladium L₃ edge to study the mechanism of the thermal decomposition of ammonium hexachloropalladate. The spectra show a characteristic feature for the initial step that might be explained as the formation of the precursor via ligand exchange (Cl ⇒ NH₃). Multiple scattering calculations (Feff 8) for the Cl K, Pd and Rh L₃ edges were successful in simulating the XANES spectra of the precursor as well as the reference compounds (NH₄)₂[PdCl₄] and (NH₄)₃[RhCl₆].