When: 28 May, 15:00 – Watch Now
Opportunities for studying catalytic materials with intense radiation sources; what, where, when and how.
It was in 1836 that Jöns Jacob Berzelius provided the first, basic description of a catalyst and its properties. Both the breadth and depth of our understanding of catalysts and catalytic processes has clearly progressed a lot since then – to a large extent this has been enabled by catalyst characterisation, performed increasingly in real time as the catalyst performs its function. Despite these developments, designing a catalyst/catalytic process from scratch is still incredibly difficult. Fortunately, characterisation methods, particularly those using bright light sources (i.e. X-rays, Lasers etc.) and ways in which catalysts & catalytic process can be interrogated are constantly evolving. In this webinar I will highlight and discuss what I think are some recent exciting studies performed by ourselves and others and explain how the wider catalysis community can engage with and benefit from such developments. I will conclude with an overview of some of the planned technical developments on the horizon and suggest where their might be future possibilities for researchers on the quest to unravel the secrets behind what makes a catalyst work?
Andy Beale is currently Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at UCL and Group Leader at the research complex at Harwell, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Chief Scientific Officer of Finden Ltd (incorporated in 2012). He is also a Co-I and principal academic responsible for the Harwell activities of the EPSRC sponsored UK Catalysis Hub. Current research interests concern the study of functional materials used as catalysts and in energy storage with novel chemical imaging techniques using X-ray scattering and/or spectroscopic methods, often studied under dynamic (or operando) conditions; this was recently exemplified by a publication first, on the subject of 5D X-ray diffraction imaging of a working catalytic reactor.
Andy was awarded a BSc from the University of Sussex followed by a PhD at the Royal Institution of Great Britain on the subject of in situ X-ray crystallisation studies of mixed oxide materials. He then worked as a Postdoctoral fellow, VENI research fellow and Assistant Professor in the Department of Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Andy then returned to the UK and to UCL in 2013 as an EPSRC Early career fellow.
Andy is a current member of the STFC Science Board and current member of the EPSRC college. He is a member of the Project Management Committee for the EPSRC XMaS facility. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
More information about Prof. Andrew Beale’s group at http://beale-group.co.uk
Click on the image below to watch the recording of the webinar.