Characterisation of Nanomaterials for Energy
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Materials
Abstract
Characterisation underpins all developments in new materials for energy where structural, chemical and electronic information across length scales is needed to develop a complete understanding of the relationship between materials properties, function and structure.
The renewal of the Oxford Materials Characterisation Platform grant focuses on the Characterisation of Nanoscale Materials for Energy to flexibly support an expanded team of skilled post-doctoral research scientists working collaboratively on the characterisation of a range of energy related materials related to the nuclear industry, catalysis and solar and fuel cell technology.
The platform grant renewal will support key staff between fixed term contacts to enable them to develop their independent research careers. In addition we will also use the platform grant to "pump prime" a number of evolving and strategically important interdisciplinary research directions.
We will develop correlated methods for the characterisation of energy materials using
1. All available signals arising from electron scattering in the (Scanning) Transmission Electron Microscope (S)TEM) for structural and chemical analysis at the atomic scale.
3. NanoSIMS in characterising nuclear materials degradation and polymeric materials.
4. Super resolution optical microscopy and spectroscopy, and correlating these with equivalent electron based methods in studies of photocatalysts
5. Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy (STM) to understand model catalysts and ceramic membranes for fuel cells
6. Atom Probe Tomography (APT) for the characterisation of nanoparticles for catalysis
7. Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) to characterise long range strain and deformation in materials for comparison with atomistic data obtained from EM, APT and STM.
Overall, this platform grant renewal will sustain and startegically develop a research team which brings together all the relevant skills needed to support a comprehensive characterisation strategy, so that progress can be made towards materials characterisation of energy materials relevant to UK industry.
The renewal of the Oxford Materials Characterisation Platform grant focuses on the Characterisation of Nanoscale Materials for Energy to flexibly support an expanded team of skilled post-doctoral research scientists working collaboratively on the characterisation of a range of energy related materials related to the nuclear industry, catalysis and solar and fuel cell technology.
The platform grant renewal will support key staff between fixed term contacts to enable them to develop their independent research careers. In addition we will also use the platform grant to "pump prime" a number of evolving and strategically important interdisciplinary research directions.
We will develop correlated methods for the characterisation of energy materials using
1. All available signals arising from electron scattering in the (Scanning) Transmission Electron Microscope (S)TEM) for structural and chemical analysis at the atomic scale.
3. NanoSIMS in characterising nuclear materials degradation and polymeric materials.
4. Super resolution optical microscopy and spectroscopy, and correlating these with equivalent electron based methods in studies of photocatalysts
5. Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy (STM) to understand model catalysts and ceramic membranes for fuel cells
6. Atom Probe Tomography (APT) for the characterisation of nanoparticles for catalysis
7. Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) to characterise long range strain and deformation in materials for comparison with atomistic data obtained from EM, APT and STM.
Overall, this platform grant renewal will sustain and startegically develop a research team which brings together all the relevant skills needed to support a comprehensive characterisation strategy, so that progress can be made towards materials characterisation of energy materials relevant to UK industry.
Planned Impact
Our underlying motivation in the research to be supported by this Platform Grant is that it should contribute to the development of advanced characterisation of energy materials in a cross disciplinary, multi technique approach.
This approach will have clear societal benefits, to users, and commercial benefits, to instrument manufacturers. The EPSRC Nanotechnology Grand Challenges include Energy as one theme to be pursued and accurate materials characterisation is a key component of this. The societal and economic impacts of new materials for energy are huge as highlighted in the 2010, RCUK Review of Energy. The specific economic impacts are in the manufacture of new materials and in the commercial development of improved instrumentation. The societal impact is equally large as energy is such a pervasive part of modern life.
We foresee four main classes of impact arising from our research:
1. An improved understanding of materials in the fields of catalysis, solar cells, nuclear materials and others based on more accurate characterisation of their structure and chemistry. In turn this may lead to materials with improved properties. Examples include catalytic selectivity or resistance to poisoning which require an understanding of atomic scale surface structures and higher efficiency solid state lighting which is critically dependent on defect structure and density.
2. The development of improved characterisation approaches correlated across different length scales. This will have direct impact on commercial instrument development and in industries where characterisation is a key part of process control and refinement.
3. The career development of skilled scientists for UK academia and industry who will be trained to the highest level and able to operate state of the art instrumentation. This has evident impact on the skills base of the UK workforce.
4. We have found that our work, in a field which impacts daily life can be disseminated in such as way as to excite the imagination of some of the best and brightest school students motivating them to choose to study mathematical and physical science subjects at A level and beyond. This helps to sustain a future supply of qualified people for a wide range of professions and industrial careers.
This approach will have clear societal benefits, to users, and commercial benefits, to instrument manufacturers. The EPSRC Nanotechnology Grand Challenges include Energy as one theme to be pursued and accurate materials characterisation is a key component of this. The societal and economic impacts of new materials for energy are huge as highlighted in the 2010, RCUK Review of Energy. The specific economic impacts are in the manufacture of new materials and in the commercial development of improved instrumentation. The societal impact is equally large as energy is such a pervasive part of modern life.
We foresee four main classes of impact arising from our research:
1. An improved understanding of materials in the fields of catalysis, solar cells, nuclear materials and others based on more accurate characterisation of their structure and chemistry. In turn this may lead to materials with improved properties. Examples include catalytic selectivity or resistance to poisoning which require an understanding of atomic scale surface structures and higher efficiency solid state lighting which is critically dependent on defect structure and density.
2. The development of improved characterisation approaches correlated across different length scales. This will have direct impact on commercial instrument development and in industries where characterisation is a key part of process control and refinement.
3. The career development of skilled scientists for UK academia and industry who will be trained to the highest level and able to operate state of the art instrumentation. This has evident impact on the skills base of the UK workforce.
4. We have found that our work, in a field which impacts daily life can be disseminated in such as way as to excite the imagination of some of the best and brightest school students motivating them to choose to study mathematical and physical science subjects at A level and beyond. This helps to sustain a future supply of qualified people for a wide range of professions and industrial careers.
Publications
Wu X
(2016)
Growth of Continuous Monolayer Graphene with Millimeter-sized Domains Using Industrially Safe Conditions.
in Scientific reports
Yang J
(2015)
Growth of high-density carbon nanotube forests on conductive TiSiN supports
in Applied Physics Letters
Sun Z
(2015)
High-quality functionalized few-layer graphene: facile fabrication and doping with nitrogen as a metal-free catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction
in Journal of Materials Chemistry A
Li C
(2013)
Highly Electron Transparent Graphene for Field Emission Triode Gates
in Advanced Functional Materials
Song B
(2018)
Hollow Electron Ptychographic Diffractive Imaging.
in Physical review letters
He K
(2014)
Hydrogen-free graphene edges.
in Nature communications
Yang H
(2015)
Imaging screw dislocations at atomic resolution by aberration-corrected electron optical sectioning.
in Nature communications
Marrow T
(2016)
In situ measurement of the strains within a mechanically loaded polygranular graphite
in Carbon
Saucedo-Mora L
(2016)
In situ observation of mechanical damage within a SiC-SiC ceramic matrix composite
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Vertyagina Y
(2014)
In situ quantitative three-dimensional characterisation of sub-indentation cracking in polycrystalline alumina
in Journal of the European Ceramic Society
Liberti E
(2018)
In-Situ Annealing of the (110) and (001) Surfaces of SrTiO 3 Nanocuboids by High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy
in physica status solidi (a)
Robertson AW
(2014)
Inflating graphene with atomic scale blisters.
in Nano letters
Wu C
(2013)
Initial growth stages of titanium and barium oxide films on SrTiO3(001)
in Surface Science
Gong C
(2014)
Interactions of Pb and Te atoms with graphene.
in Dalton transactions (Cambridge, England : 2003)
Lozano JG
(2018)
Low-Dose Aberration-Free Imaging of Li-Rich Cathode Materials at Various States of Charge Using Electron Ptychography.
in Nano letters
Sugime H
(2015)
Low-Temperature Growth of Carbon Nanotube Forests Consisting of Tubes with Narrow Inner Spacing Using Co/Al/Mo Catalyst on Conductive Supports.
in ACS applied materials & interfaces
Jones L
(2018)
Maximising the resolving power of the scanning tunneling microscope.
in Advanced structural and chemical imaging
Wilkinson A
(2014)
Measurement of probability distributions for internal stresses in dislocated crystals
in Applied Physics Letters
Wadey J
(2016)
Mechanisms of monovacancy diffusion in graphene
in Chemical Physics Letters
Mostafavi M
(2013)
Observation and quantification of three-dimensional crack propagation in poly-granular graphite
in Engineering Fracture Mechanics
Saucedo-Mora L
(2016)
Observation and simulation of indentation damage in a SiC-SiCfibre ceramic matrix composite
in Finite Elements in Analysis and Design
Barba D
(2017)
On the composition of microtwins in a single crystal nickel-based superalloy
in Scripta Materialia
Luo K
(2016)
One-Pot Synthesis of Lithium-Rich Cathode Material with Hierarchical Morphology.
in Nano letters
Allen CS
(2014)
Optically enhanced charge transfer between C60 and single-wall carbon nanotubes in hybrid electronic devices.
in Nanoscale
Wang S
(2017)
Orientation dependent interlayer stacking structure in bilayer MoS2 domains.
in Nanoscale
Robertson AW
(2015)
Partial Dislocations in Graphene and Their Atomic Level Migration Dynamics.
in Nano letters
Robertson A
(2014)
PbTe Nanocrystal Arrays on Graphene and the Structural Influence of Capping Ligands
in Chemistry of Materials
Borisenko KB
(2015)
Photo-induced optical activity in phase-change memory materials.
in Scientific reports
Powell A
(2016)
Plasmonic Gas Sensing Using Nanocube Patch Antennas
in Advanced Optical Materials
Neo DC
(2016)
Poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) as a Hole Transport Layer for Colloidal Quantum Dot Solar Cells.
in ACS applied materials & interfaces
Cheng C
(2014)
Polystyrene templated porous titania wells for quantum dot heterojunction solar cells.
in ACS applied materials & interfaces
Liberti E
(2020)
Quantifying oxygen distortions in lithium-rich transition-metal-oxide cathodes using ABF STEM.
in Ultramicroscopy
Liberti E
(2016)
Quantitative Comparison of Phase Contrast Imaging in Conventional TEM Focal Series and STEM Ptychography
in Microscopy and Microanalysis
Neo D
(2015)
Quantum funneling in blended multi-band gap core/shell colloidal quantum dot solar cells
in Applied Physics Letters
Haigh SJ
(2013)
Recording low and high spatial frequencies in exit wave reconstructions.
in Ultramicroscopy
Kim H
(2015)
Resilient High Catalytic Performance of Platinum Nanocatalysts with Porous Graphene Envelope.
in ACS nano
BAIMPAS N
(2014)
RICH TOMOGRAPHY TECHNIQUES FOR THE ANALYSIS OF MICROSTRUCTURE AND DEFORMATION
in International Journal of Computational Methods
Warner JH
(2013)
Rippling graphene at the nanoscale through dislocation addition.
in Nano letters
Flatten LC
(2016)
Room-temperature exciton-polaritons with two-dimensional WS2.
in Scientific reports
Chen Q
(2015)
Rotating Anisotropic Crystalline Silicon Nanoclusters in Graphene.
in ACS nano
Warner JH
(2013)
Sensitivity of graphene edge states to surface adatom interactions.
in Nano letters
Yang H
(2016)
Simultaneous atomic-resolution electron ptychography and Z-contrast imaging of light and heavy elements in complex nanostructures.
in Nature communications
Liu WC
(2019)
Solvodynamic Printing As A High Resolution Printing Method.
in Scientific reports
Liu W
(2021)
Solvodynamically Printed Silver Nanowire/Ethylene- co -vinyl Acetate Composite Films as Sensitive Piezoresistive Pressure Sensors
in ACS Applied Nano Materials
Gong C
(2015)
Spatially dependent lattice deformations for dislocations at the edges of graphene.
in ACS nano
Robertson AW
(2014)
Stability and dynamics of the tetravacancy in graphene.
in Nano letters
| Description | Applications of advanced characterisation to the understanding of a range of materials important to energy applications, including Graphene and other 2D materials, solar cells and optical devices |
| Exploitation Route | Further applications of methods developed to a wider range of materials problems |
| Sectors | Education,Electronics,Energy,Other |
| Description | Development of novel characterisation methods including Ptychography in various modes This is now being applied to a range of materials problems in academic in various laboratories and more recently is finding applications in structural biology |
| First Year Of Impact | 2018 |
| Sector | Education,Energy,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology,Other |
| Description | Instrument Development with JEOL Ltd |
| Organisation | Jeol UK Ltd |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Joint development of a time resolved TEM |
| Collaborator Contribution | Joint development of a time resolved TEM |
| Impact | None to date |
| Start Year | 2018 |