During the reaction between malachite, ammonium sulfate, and sodium sulfide, the XPS results analysis showed an unexpected peak of N 1s element detected upon the malachite surface with an atomic concentration percentage% of N 1s. The question is, what are the products forming with Nitrogen then adsorbed on the malachite surface?
Conduct the experiment again, and slightly clean the sample before drying
Malachite contains OH- and CO32-, both of which can easily be protonated by NH4+, then you have an NH3/H2O film on the surface which can of course do all sorts of chemistry resulting in nitrogen species getting incorporated. So nothing unexpected has happened there.
Would be helpful to know the N(1s) binding energy in questions like these, but as already stated this is very likely adsorbed nitrogen in the form of ammonium ions as these are in your reaction.
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