The proposed equipment will provide a unique, state of-the-art electron microscopy infrastructure that would allow researchers to directly probe the surface/interfacial properties and surface dynamics of materials at nanometer length scales. These facilities will enable a deeper fundamental understanding essential to developing novel functional materials for catalysis and energy applications.
The major users include those from the Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis (CEBC), the Kansas Center for Solar Energy Research (CSER), and their nationwide academic/industry collaborators. Additionally, many other researchers in engineering, geology and biological sciences will benefit from these facilities. CEBC researchers are addressing the major challenges facing the sustainable manufacture of fuels and chemicals from traditional and renewable feedstocks. The design of active, selective and stable catalysts is a key challenge in this regard. Examples of recent innovations include versatile large-pore ordered mesoporous catalyst supports, nanometer size metal catalysts tethered to supports by organic and inorganic anchors that show enhanced activity for a variety of chemical transformations, and bimetallic catalysis for hydrogenolysis of biomass-derived feedstocks. The proposed instrumentation will enable in situ characterizations of the catalytic metal and surface reactant species at nanometer level resolution.
For researchers working in engineering and the sciences, there’s always more than meets the eye. For them, it is essential to see, analyze, and manipulate materials down to the nanometer scale (1 nanometer = 40 billionths of an inch). The purpose of this project was to acquire state-of-the-art microscopy instrumentation at the University of Kansas (KU) for this very purpose. The instrument is housed in a shared facility at the University of Kansas campus, and thus is available to all researchers at KU, as well as other regional institutions including Kansas State University. The instrument is casually referred to as a "Dual Beam," but the scientific name is a Focused Ion Beam/Scanning Electron Microscope (FIB/SEM). For the SEM part, a narrow beam of electrons is aimed at the sample you want to study, and a sophisticated array of detectors allows the user to generate a picture of the sample’s surface, and will even create a "map" of what elements are present and how they are distributed on the sample. An added bonus to this "environmental" SEM instrument, compared to other SEM instruments, is that it does not require the extreme vacuum conditions. This feature allows researchers to examine a wider variety of materials, particularly those whose structure may be changed in the harsh, high-vacuum environment of traditional SEM instruments. For the FIB part, users can precisely cut, etch, or mill their samples by using a focused beam of gallium atoms that bombard the surface. For example, a user could generate a SEM image of a sample’s surface, use the FIB to mill off the top layer of material, and take another SEM image of what was lying just beneath the surface--essentially gaining a three-dimensional understanding of the material structure and composition. Altogether, these capabilities create an incredibly powerful tool that has wide ranging applications as follows. Since the acquisition of Dual Beam, researchers in chemistry and chemical engineering have been using this instrument to understand and improve catalytic materials that will more efficiently produce chemical building blocks needed for plastics, detergents, fibers, and much more. They are also using it to help develop improved materials for storing energy created from wind- or solar-powered generators. Physicists are able to better understand how to create nanoparticles and other new materials that may someday have applications in electronics, medicine and more. Geologists and paleontologists are characterizing minerals that yield clues to past changes in climate and ocean acidity levels. Biologists are gaining insights on previously poorly-understood surface structures found on the leaves of aquatic plants. These are just a few examples, and the user base of this instrument continues to grow. In addition to providing a unique tool to advance fundamental knowledge as part of their research, student researchers are also gaining hands-on experience with cutting-edge instrumentation, thereby being uniquely trained to contribute to future discoveries and innovations in materials-based research.
