Open Access

Show Abstract ▼

Abstract: Iron-based single-site catalysts hold immense potential for achieving highly selective chemical processes, with the added advantage of iron being an earth-abundant metal. They are widely explored in electrocatalysis for oxygen reduction and display promising catalytic activity for organic transformations. In particular, FeNx@C catalysts are active for the reduction of nitroarene into aromatic amines. Yet, they are difficult to mass-produce, and most preparation methods fail to avoid single site aggregation. Here we prepared FeNx@C catalysts from bio-derived compounds, xylose and haemoglobin, in a simple two-step process. Since haemoglobin naturally contains FeNx single-sites, we successfully repurposed them into hydrogenation catalytic centers and avoided their aggregation during the preparation of the material. Their single-site nature was demonstrated by aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy and X-ray absorption techniques. They were shown to be active for transfer hydrogenation of nitroarenes into anilines, with excellent substrate selectivity and recyclability, as demonstrated by the preserved yield across seven catalytic cycles. We also showed that FeNx@C could be used to prepare 2-phenylbenzimidazole through a reduction/condensation tandem. Our work shows for the first time the viability of biomass precursors to prepare Fe single-site hydrogenation catalysts.

Show Abstract ▼

Abstract: The commercial catalysts currently used to remove polluting gases from vehicle exhausts rely on expensive precious metals, with demand continually growing. Preparing these catalysts often requires solvents, waste treatment and elevated temperatures, all with an environmental cost. One solution is to investigate the use of an alternative, more abundant material. LaMnO has shown promising catalytic behaviour and is made by physically mixing two solid reactants. The catalytic activity of materials is highly dependent on how they are produced. In this work, researchers synthesised LaMnO3 by a novel method, ball milling, to improve its catalytic properties. To replicate or optimise the final material structure, it is vital to investigate the chemical steps occurring within the ball mill. However, the ball mill setup makes it difficult to perform real-time analysis. Therefore, the research team replicated the conditions experienced within the ball mill by applying extreme pressures to the starting materials. Using Diamond Light Source’s Energy Dispersive EXAFS beamline (I20-EDE) meant they could monitor how the structure changes with increasing pressure, using X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS) measurements in real-time. This beamline setup also allowed them to use a specialised high-pressure cell. They used complementary measurements on Diamond’s Versatile Soft X-ray (VerSoX) beamline (B07) to study the surface properties of the materials during catalysis. Beamline I20-Scanning was used to look at electronic structure. For industrial companies researching ball milling as an alternative production route, i.e. for autocatalysis or battery materials, this research highlights that though the preparation route produces beneficial properties at a lower environmental cost, understanding its underlying chemistry is hugely challenging.

Show Abstract ▼

Abstract: The use of X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) to follow liquid phase catalysed reactions is widely used. However, in catalysis, small quantities of active species are usually present, complicating the differentiation of spectator and active species. In these cases, the use of Modulation Excitation (ME) techniques can be used to achieve a better signal-to-noise ratio by cycle averaging. ME coupled with phase-sensitive detection can significantly improve the sensitivity of the spectroscopic technique by filtering out contributions of spectator species that are unaltered by the external stimulation. This has been used in combined XAS/DRIFTS studies of gas phase reactions, successfully identifying surface intermediates present in small concentration. [1] In this study, ME assisted by phase-sensitive detection analysis has been applied to the study of liquid-phase reactions using XAS. This methodology has been successfully applied to the study of the electrochemical oxidation of Na4FeII(CN)6. The experiment was undertaken in a newly three-electrode designed electrochemical cell at the I20-EDE beamline at Diamond Light Source. 30, 50, and 75 mM aqueous solutions of the iron complex in 1 M NaF/NaCl electrolytes were investigated. Cyclic voltammograms were measured during potential cycling with potential limits ± 1.5 V, at 200 and 300 mV/s scan rates, for 100 cycles. This perturbed the system reversibly allowing the cycle averaging of the XAS data. This study shows that ME assisted by phase-sensitive detection analysis can be successfully applied to XAS for the study of liquid-phase reactions. Signal-to-noise ratios were improved significantly through cycle averaging, and additional information were extracted from the phase-resolved FT-EXAFS spectra demonstrating the enhanced sensitivity.

Open Access

Show Abstract ▼

Abstract: A polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) has been designed to allow operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) measurements of catalysts. The cell has been developed to operate under standard fuel cell conditions, with elevated temperatures and humidification of the gas-phase reactants, both of which greatly impact the catalyst utilisation. X-ray windows in the endplates of the cell facilitate collection of XAS spectra during fuel cell operation while maintaining good compression in the area of measurement. Results of polarisation curves and cyclic voltammograms (CVs) showed that the operando cell performs well as a fuel cell, while also providing XAS data of suitable quality for robust XANES analysis. The cell has produced comparable XAS results when performing a cyclic voltammogram to an established in situ cell when measuring the Pt LIII edge. Similar trends of Pt oxidation, and reduction of the formed Pt oxide, have been presented with a time resolution of 5 seconds for each spectrum, paving the way for time-resolved spectral measurements of fuel cell catalysts in a fully-operating fuel cell.

Open Access

Show Abstract ▼

Abstract: Deep eutectic solvents (DES) and their hydrated mixtures are used for solvothermal routes towards greener functional nanomaterials. Here we present the first static structural and in situ studies of the formation of iron oxide (hematite) nanoparticles in a DES of choline chloride[thin space (1/6-em)]:[thin space (1/6-em)]urea where xurea = 0.67 (aka. reline) as an exemplar solvothermal reaction, and observe the effects of water on the reaction. The initial speciation of Fe3+ in DES solutions was measured using extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS), while the atomistic structure of the mixture was resolved from neutron and X-ray diffraction and empirical potential structure refinement (EPSR) modelling. The reaction was monitored using in situ small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), to determine mesoscale changes, and EXAFS, to determine local rearrangements of order around iron ions. It is shown that iron salts form an octahedral [Fe(L)3(Cl)3] complex where (L) represents various O-containing ligands. Solubilised Fe3+ induced subtle structural rearrangements in the DES due to abstraction of chloride into complexes and distortion of H-bonding around complexes. EXAFS suggests the complex forms [–O–Fe–O–] oligomers by reaction with the products of thermal hydrolysis of urea, and is thus pseudo-zero-order in iron. In the hydrated DES, the reaction, nucleation and growth proceeds rapidly, whereas in the pure DES, the reaction initially proceeds quickly, but suddenly slows after 5000 s. In situ SANS and static small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments reveal that nanoparticles spontaneously nucleate after 5000 s of reaction time in the pure DES before slow growth. Contrast effects observed in SANS measurements suggest that hydrated DES preferentially form 1D particle morphologies because of choline selectively capping surface crystal facets to direct growth along certain axes, whereas capping is restricted by the solvent structure in the pure DES.