Acquisition and Customization of a Facility for the In-situ X-ray Structural Analysis of Nanomaterials

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This research will establish a small angle x-ray scattering facility at Purdue University for characterization of catalysts and other nanomaterials. A customized small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) instrument and an ultra small angle x-ray scattering instrument (USAXS) will be developed with environmental chambers that provide control of temperature, pressure, and gas-phase composition for in situ analysis. X-ray scattering at small and ultra small angles provides valuable quantitative structural information about domain size, shape, and fractal dimension. Due to the wealth of information obtained, small angle x-ray scattering (with diffraction) can lead to the rapid development of new nanomaterials including heterogeneous catalysts, ordered nanoporous thin films, oxide-based nanoparticles, metal nanoclusters, and self-assembled block copolymers. However, efficient materials development requires direct access to x-ray scattering instrumentation in order to provide immediate feedback for rational nanomaterials synthesis. Many of the research efforts that the facility will benefit have the potential to broadly impact society. For example, novel nanostructured electrodes for fuel cell catalysis and low-cost self-assembled nanostructured photovoltaic materials have the potential to reduce society's dependence on non-renewable resources and enable the hydrogen economy of the future. Novel nanostructured thermoelectric materials have the potential to revolutionize the cooling industry, and metal nanoparticle structures could lead to plasmonic sensors capable of detecting single molecules of a wide spectrum of biological and chemical agents. All of these endeavors require the rapid x-ray characterization of nanostructured materials and will greatly benefit from the proposed instrument. The resulting facility will provide unique and powerful instruments to campus and regional researchers that will enable the development of the next generation of nanomaterials and catalysts.