Revisiting FeSbO4, order vs. disorder?

Iron antimonite is an interesting material which has attracted extensive attention as a hydrocarbon catalyst a more recently as a potential battery electrode. We are interested in the potential magnetic properties of this material. Previous literature has suggested that the iron and antimony cations are disorder on the rutile structure with no long range magnetic ordering. Our experimental results are inconsistent with these observations and we believe that it is important to revisit this material. Our group has extensive experience probing these types of problems using powder neutron diffraction. We plan to carry out a complete powder neutron diffraction study of this material on the Echidna beamline at the ANSTO facility in Australia. In particular we plan to investigate the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the crystal structure and magnetic behaviour. We believe this will enable us to answer the key question of order vs. disorder in this material. This is important if we are to truly understand how this material behaves in other aspects such as in catalysis. We believe this work will enable a greater understanding of this material as well as other related materials.

Understanding complex magnetic ordering and the interplay between magnetism and electronic properties is important if we are to develop viable candidates for application. The experiments proposed here look to revisit the structural (cation) and magnetic ordering of the material, FeSbO4. We believe this work will be of considerable interest to the theoretical and experimental Physics, Chemistry and Materials Science communities, as well as offering (related) materials which have much more wide spread potential applications in electronics, renewable energy, battery technologies and catalysis due to their complex chemistry. As a result we anticipate that the impact of this work is far reaching, providing clear evidence of the value of interdisciplinary and internationally leading research in the UK and surpassing traditional academic boundaries to influence other facets of the global community. This Overseas Travel proposal looks to provide funds to enable the PI to attend these experiments in Australia. In this sense the pathways to impact are much more theoretical and less actionable than a much longer term grant. Despite this we have established an impact strategy as briefly summarised below;

Knowledge transfer strategy: The importance of knowledge transfer can be linked to an effective plan for dissemination. Whilst for the current program of work this will involve knowledge transfer through the traditional academic dissemination routes through publication in high impact journals, conference participation and networking with interested academic partners and beneficiaries. However we do not rule out the importance of dissemination to academic and non-academic stakeholders and third party end users and we plan to keep this in mind for impact beyond the current proposal.

Communication and engagement: Part of the knowledge transfer strategy involves engaging with wider audiences not only through traditional academic routes, but also through outreach and social media. This will be achieved through the following;
* Use of social media, such as the School of Physical Science twitter feed, for communicating results to wider audiences.
* Public engagement activities.