Advanced Surface Characterization Equipment for Porous Materials: An Immediate Need

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The aim of this proposal is to purchase a unique, fully automated, and three-station advanced surface characterization equipment capable of high-performance physisorption and chemisorption analyses with superior accuracy and resolution. This equipment, which will be installed at the INRS-EMT, will be used for the quantification of the surface area, micro-/meso-pore size distributions, pore volume static chemisorption, dynamic chemisorption, heat of adsorption, and vapor adsorption of various nanomaterials. ******This requested surface characterization equipment is needed urgently, for the following five reasons. (i) It is CRITICAL to the research of the PI and the co-PIs. It will greatly benefit their various NSERC research programs and raise their ability to build and strengthen the collaborations with academia and industry. (ii) Over 60% (8 co-applicants + 16 users) of the faculty members (total 39) at INRS-EMT have been working on research programs related to porous materials for energy, environment and sensing applications. Despite this, there is no equipment at EMT that is capable of analyzing the porous structures, to meet everyone's needs. This situation becomes more acute with the recent hiring of several new faculty members with R&D interests in the field of porous materials. (iii) All the surface and porous characterizations at EMT are being conducted externally, which is time and cost consuming. Moreover, we experience difficulty in sending/receiving samples, especially those with specific characteristics (e.g., fragility, air/humidity sensitive). The requested equipment has the advantages of addressing the challenges presented by the conventional BET technique (e.g., 1 sample per time, physisorption analysis only, limited analysis gas, etc.), as it is highly efficient (analyzes 3 samples simultaneously), capable of both chemisorption and physisorption analyses and a fast switch between the two modes (in less than 3 minutes), and able to extend pore size analysis (less than 0.7 nm), and can handle various analysis gases (H2, CO, He, N2, Ar, Kr, CO2, CH4, etc.). (iv) This equipment is required for various research programs in the areas of high socio-economic importance to Canada, e.g., energy conversion and storage (fuel cells, lithium batteries, metal-air batteries, and solar cells), wastewater treatment, sensors, materials science. (v) Beyond its important impact on the specific research programs of the PI and co-PIs, acquisition of this equipment will add an important component to the training of the HQP. Based on the projects to be supported, we estimate a minimum of 32 HQP/year for whom the use of the requested equipment is essential for the advancement of their MSc/PhD/ PDF projects.**