Active Chemistry Materials & Manufacturing

Atomic imaging of dynamic behaviour at solid-liquid interfaces

Funder UKRI
Recipient organisation University of Manchester
Funding £2.5M
Period Mar 2024 — Feb 2029

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Scientists will watch individual atoms move at the boundary where a solid meets a liquid, using a custom-built electron microscope platform. No existing technique can image solid-liquid interfaces with atomic resolution. This blind spot matters because surface defects and chemical variations at these interfaces control how catalysts work, how membranes filter substances, and how energy materials degrade. Without seeing atoms in action, researchers cannot directly understand why some materials fail or why others perform better. The team will build a 2D heterostructure platform inside a transmission electron microscope, then systematically vary temperature, voltage, liquid flow, and solution chemistry while recording atomic-scale changes. They will focus on inorganic surfaces, tracking how adsorbed species and near-surface ions behave under different conditions. If successful, the work could guide the design of more stable and efficient catalysts for sustainable energy production, and more durable membranes for water filtration and chemical separation. This is fundamental science—it does not produce a market-ready device. But the atomic-level understanding it generates will give materials scientists the rules they need to engineer better solid-liquid systems from the ground up.

View original technical description
Problem statement: Dynamic processes at solid-liquid interfaces are of key importance across broad areas of science and technology. However, no current technique can image solids interacting with liquids at atomic resolution. Atomic sensitivity is needed to understand the role of surface defects and chemical inhomogeneities on complex diffusion pathways and adsorption/desorption behaviour. Our solution: This project will develop a world-leading 2D heterostructure in situ atomic resolution TEM platform to provide a stepchange in understanding of dynamic atomic scale processes at solid-liquid interfaces. Focussing on inorganic surfaces, we will study changes in the behaviour of the surface, adsorbed species and near surface ions as a function of temperature, applied bias, nanoconfinement, surface morphology/composition, liquid flow and solution chemistry. The new knowledge gained from our dynamic in situ investigations will be used to develop the improved materials needed to achieve a sustainable energy future. Our two application work packages (WPs) focus efforts on new fundamental understanding to enable: - synthesis of scalable heterogenous (electro)catalysts with greater stability and function (WP1) - engineering of adsorption/filtration membranes with greater function and resistance to degradation (WP2). The ambitious science goals in WP1 and WP2 are only achievable by the parallel development of pioneering new experimental capabilities in WP3.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Sarah Haigh (Principal Investigator)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Dynamic Structural Science at the RC@H
Expanding the Environmental Frontiers of Operando Metrology for Advanced Device Materials Development
High temporal resolution TEM imaging of dynamic processes in heterogenous catalysts
Dynamic physicochemical nanoscale imaging at the solid-liquid interface
Combined Atomic Imaging and Diffraction Studies of the Electrooxidation of Supported Metal Multilayers

Original classification

Research Grant

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.