Mahner, E Hansen, J Küchler, D Malabaila, M Taborelli, M Phys. Rev. Spec. Top. Accel. Beams 053201 8 2005 2005 The ion-induced desorption experiment, installed in the CERN Heavy Ion Accelerator (LINAC 3), has been used to measure molecular desorption yields for 4.2 MeV/u lead ions impacting on different accelerator-type vacuum chambers. In order to study the effect of the surface oxide layer on the gas desorption, gold-, silver-, and palladium-coated 316LN stainless steel chambers and similarly prepared samples were tested for desorption at LINAC 3 and analysed for chemical composition by X-ray Photoemission Spectroscopy (XPS). The large effective desorption yield of 2 x 10**4 molecules/ion, previously measured for uncoated, vacuum fired stainless steel, was reduced after noble metal coating by up to 2 orders of magnitude. In addition, the effectiveness of beam scrubbing with heavy ions and the consequence of a subsequent venting on the desorption yields of a beam-scrubbed vacuum chamber are described. Practical consequences for the vacuum system of the future Low Energy Ion Ring (LEIR) are discussed.