A new microscope will watch nanoparticles as they react with gases, capturing atomic-scale changes in real time rather than after the fact. Current electron microscopes require high vacuum, making it impossible to see catalysts—tiny metal particles that speed up chemical reactions—while they are actually working under industrial conditions. This instrument, the world’s first aberration-corrected environmental scanning transmission electron microscope, will image catalysts at temperatures and gas pressures that mimic real reactors. It can resolve features smaller than 0.1 nanometres, identify individual atoms by their chemical composition, and track how catalysts form, activate, degrade, and regenerate. If successful, the research could help industry design longer-lasting catalysts for processes that quietly underpin modern life: producing fuels, making plastics, and cleaning exhaust. A direct example is fuel cells, where catalyst degradation currently limits commercial viability. Understanding exactly how and why nanoparticles change during use could extend their working life, reducing costs and waste. The project is fundamental science with clear industrial relevance. It will train a new generation of researchers and give UK industry a globally unique tool for developing more efficient, durable catalysts.
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We propose to create in the UK a novel research capability providing Angstrom Analysis for dynamic in-situ reaction studies under controlled conditions of temperature and continuous gas atmosphere rather than the usual high vacuum. The new design provides the world's first full function aberration corrected environmental scanning transmission electron microscope (AC ESTEM). In association with partners in the vibrant UK chemical and energy industries we will generate fundamental application science underpinning nanoparticle based solid state heterogeneous catalysis used in gas-solid reactions. We will modify an existing AC TEM/STEM instrument to complement and extend with gas reaction studies the National AC STEM Facility's superior image and energy resolutions in high vacuum. It will be used in York programmes and collaborative projects with other groups through the AC STEM. It builds on the PIs' established reputations for global leadership in ETEM, with most of the worldwide activity to date - all overseas - based on >10 high resolution ETEMs and many of them AC (on the TEM image side only), using core technology from the authors' earlier developments. Preliminary 'proof-of-principle' has been demonstrated on the remotely controlled double aberration corrected JEOL 2200FS TEM/STEM at York; combining sub-Angstrom (<0.1nm) resolution, unrestricted HAADF Z-contrast STEM imaging, wide angle electron diffraction and EDX (+ EELS) chemical analysis not available on ETEMs. The double aberration correction collects, in a single and often directly interpretable TEM image, a full range of spatial frequencies at close to zero defocus to minimise image delocalisation at internal interfaces such as grain boundaries, external surfaces, defects and other key discontinuities. This is especially important for dynamic in-situ studies with continuously changing data making impractical older through-focal series reconstruction methods. AC also transforms the sensitivity of STEM analysis. The work will use analytical methods established with 'frozen' and process extracted samples, and apply them to the study of continuous processes at new levels of sensitivity and relevance. Access to key intermediate states and phases may be critical to understand and control process mechanisms; but they may be metastable with respect to conditions, including temperature or chemical environment, and therefore not accessible through ex-situ or pulse studies. A very practical example, in which there is leading UK industry interest and support, is the nano-structure and related property stability of supported metal nanoparticle heterogeneous catalysts. Through synthesis, activation, operation, deactivation, reactivation and recovery mechanisms, understanding at a fundamental level is critical for managing on a rational basis industrial practice for sustained activity and selectivity; and where necessary recovering these key attributes when lost. The project direction is closely aligned with the domain science needs of real world academic and industrial applications, and there are early adoption prospects for underpinning key technologies; including to extend useful process life cycles. For example, this is critical for the wider commercial viability of fuel cells. The proposal has the support of leading UK companies in the vibrant and internationally competitive chemical industry sector, and of academic collaborators. At the same time, the new learnings in basic domain science are also directed towards opening up new applications of pressing societal value in the environment. Fundamental physical science research with strategic and tactical industrial applications leads to differentiated intellectual products with an initiative unique in the UK and fully competitive globally. The project will extend and apply core nanoparticle catalysis science and technology, and train a new cohort of students, postdocs, senior staff and visitors.
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