Catalysis is a process by which the rate and products of chemical reactions are altered by the presence of catalytic materials. Catalysis is of critical importance to the national economy and is at the core of the chemical and petroleum industries in the US. For example, it has been estimated that catalysis-based processes represent 90% of current chemical processes and generate 60% of today’s chemical products. In addition, catalysis is of growing importance in several other fields, including environmental protection, pharmaceuticals and bioengineering, and more recently fuel cells.

The consortium we have created at the NSLS in 2005 shares a wide range of expertise, resources and knowledge in surface science, nanoscience, molecular science, beamline science and instrumentation. This collaboration allows us to advance the level of catalysis science and to enhance our understandings of catalytic materials and phenomena through the utilization of the state-of-the-art synchrotron techniques under in situ reaction conditions.

At the Synchrotron Catalysis Consortium we provide resources and expertise to the catalysis user community. Led by the Beamline Scientists we encourage combined characterization methodologies that are appropriate for carrying out detailed in situ/operando studies on structure and dynamics of catalysts using X-ray absorption spectroscopy and complementary techniques, such as infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction.

The key scientific issues that we are addressing at the consortium include:

• Studying mechanisms of catalytic activity by probing electronic, structural, thermal and temporal properties of working catalysts using multimodal characterization methodologies
• Studying physicochemical properties of mono- and bimetallic nanoparticles, clusters and “single-atom” systems dispersed on oxide, carbide and nitride supports for thermochemical and electrochemical reactions
• Developing new methodologies for XAFS data analysis

We focus this effort on the utilization of the X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and its two complementary implementations: X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) and Extended XAFS (EXAFS) techniques for heterogeneous catalysis and electrocatalysis under in-situ/operando conditions.
Dedicated facilities (in-situ reactor cells, gas handling system, and combined XAFS – infrared spectroscopy capability) are either already available (at QAS beamline) or under development (at TES beamline).