From Arrhenius to non-Arrhenius: Variable Energy of activation and the kinetic compensation effect

The kinetic compensation effect, observed in many different areas of science, is the observed systematic change in the magnitudes of the Arrhenius parameters the energy of activation, E_a, and the preexponential factor, ν, as a response to external perturbations. Its existence continues to be debated as it has not been explicitly demonstrated and its physical origins remain poorly understood. As part of a systematic study of the different factors that alter the energy of activation during thermal desorption, we perform numerical studies on the effects of adsorbate-adsorbate interactions, changes in surface morphology and variations in the concentration of different chemical species.Our aim is to provide a deeper understanding into how, and to what extent, these factors produce variations in the Arrhenius parameters, and wether they yield a compensation effect. These results may help provide a deeper understanding of the microscopic events that originate compensation effects, not only in our system, but also in other fields where these effects have been reported.