CFM Lunch Seminar

Title: In situ Spectroscopic Characterization of Chemical and Physical Processes within Nanoporous Materials

Abstract: Developing advanced in situ  spectroscopic characterization techniques is challenging yet essential to addressing the barriers impeding exploration in the field of novel functional materials used in separation, purification, catalysis, energy conversion, and electronics. Such techniques must be designed for a variety of environments, including ultra-high vacuum (UHV), gaseous ambient conditions, and liquids in order to investigate real-time dynamic behavior at the atomic and molecular level and thereby uncover the physical principles forming the bases of technological processes. In our works, we have shown that infrared (IR) spectroscopy is versatile and ideally suited to probe the nature of guest-host and guest-guest interactions ranging from weak van der Waals forces to hydrogen and strong covalent chemical bonds. Information about bonding   sites/strength/geometry, inter-adsorbate  static/dynamic interactions, molecular exchange, and surface homogeneity is either inaccessible or difficult to obtain with other techniques. Detailed in situ measurements (thanks to home-made instrumentation) and careful examination of subtle changes in frequencies, intensities, and line-width/shape/broadening/splitting of specific vibrational modes, partnered with computational modelling, provide valuable and novel mechanistic information. In this talk, a number of  examples of using in situ IR spectroscopy to investigate chemical and physical processes occurring within nanoporous materials will be presented. Such studies are crucial to close the vast knowledge gap between the understanding of atomic/molecular behavior and optimal design of porous architectures.