carrying out various aspects of the invention it is understood that these examples in no way serve to limit the true scope of this invention but rather are presented for illustrative purposes the microscopy experiments described herein were performed in a controlled atmosphere electron microscope the nickel specimens were in the form of electron microscopy grids which were first degreased in acetone and then washed in deionized water then spot welded across the specimen hole in a platinum heater ribbon the titanium oxide tio 2 in powder form was introduced onto the nickel grids by the following procedure the oxide powder was ultrasonically dispersed in n butanol and a portion of the resulting mixture was applied to the grid as an atomized spray and then allowed to dry in air although these specimens were too thick to allow penetration by a 100 kev electron beam it was possible to follow the reactions occurring at the edges by observing the changes in shape of the silohette as a function to time and temperature the gases used were hydrogen oxygen and acetylene and were about 99 5 pure the flow experiments were carried in a quartz u tube 40 cm in total length with one arm being 12 mm diameter and the other 4 mm specimens in the form of foils 0 01 cm thick and cut into rectangles 3 5 cm u00d7 0 6 cm were loaded into the wider portion of the tube the reactor tube was then placed in a thermolyne u00ae 34 mini melt 34 furnace the temperature of which was measured by a.