Operando Experiments at RECX

Studying the structures of functional materials under real working conditions (operando studies) gives us some of the most useful information we can get for understanding the vital links between structure and properties. This might mean studying a fuel cell material at high temperature, watching the structure changes in a working catalyst or monitoring phase evolution in the electrodes of a battery during cycling.

Collection of time and space resolved XRD data on the methanol to gasoline process on RECX2 using xyz stage and point optics.

In the RECX lab we are well equipped for operando and in situ studies. These are mainly focused on the general purpose diffractometer RECX2 (with Mo radiation for high sample penetration in transmission mode) but can also be carried out on other instruments in the lab. Ancillary equipment available includes:

  • Gas supply system
  • Heat guns for use with RECX1 and 2
  • Battery testing cells for RECX2
  • XYZ stage for spatially resolved scans on RECX2
  • Anton Paar High temperature chambers for RECX 2 and 3
  • Capillary gas flow cells
  • BioLogic Stopped flow system for RECX5
  • BioLogic Stopped flow light scattering and UV-vis spectrometer
  • Pfeiffer Mass spectrometer
  • Oxford Cyrostream plus units mounted on RECX1 and 4
Operando XRD data for Bi2S3 as a sodium ion battery anode using a RECX2 in transmission mode. The dark color in the film plots corresponds to high intensities.

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