Development of advanced in situ methods for the study of heterogeneous catalysts

Heterogeneous (solid) catalysts underpin the manufacture of > 90% of fuels and chemicals and the chemicals sector contributes £50bn yr-1 to the UK economy. The need to develop new or improved catalysts (more efficient, selective, cheaper, greener) has never been greater, with an expanding, more developed population, depletion of fossil resources and enormous concerns about global warming. The key enabler in delivering the catalysts needed is systematic insight into the molecular / atomic mechanisms that control catalyst function.

This project will develop new approaches to the use of in situ X-ray and optical spectroscopies, at the analysis or resulting data. It will particularly focusing on Raman spectroscopy to provide insights into heterogeneous catalytic reactions such as selective oxidation or hydrogenation.

The project will employ purposefully synthesized nanomaterials to simplify the spectroscopy data, but also catalysts prepared through wet impregnation methods close to those employed industrially as reference materials to show the applicability of the techniques/approaches used to real and 'idealized' systems.