Speaker
Description
The search for more effective as well as novel functional materials, such as heterogeneous catalysts, would benefit when we could bridge the molecular world with the macroscopic world, which involves materials performance.
Such detailed information can be obtained if we would have access to a very powerful camera probing the dynamics of a functional material when it is at work. By shooting molecular movies of e.g., an active catalytic solid down to the level of single atoms and molecules we could start to understand how solid catalysts really work, but also how they evolve as a function of their lifetime. In other words, can we probe the birth, life and death of a solid catalyst under true reaction conditions, i.e, at elevated temperature and temperatures and in the presence of a gas and/or liquid. This is the field of operando spectroscopy and microscopy. Recent breakthroughs in chemical imaging techniques, based on optical, electron and X-ray methods, demonstrate that such molecular movie concept is within reach.
This keynote lecture discusses the recent advances in in-situ and operando spectroscopy and microscopy of heterogeneous solids at different length scales, starting from single molecules and single atoms up to the level of individual catalyst particles. We will discuss different methods, including scanning probe microscopy (i.e., PiFM and TERS),optical methods (e.g., fluorescence, Raman and UV-Vis spectroscopy) as well as X-ray methods (i.e., TXM, STXM and ptychography). These methods will be illustrated in the areas of thermal catalysis, photocatalysis and electrocatalysis.
| Speaker Country | Netherlands |
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