Characterisation of Catalysts by Transmission Electron Microscopy

Abstract

Catalysts are one of the most important and the most widely used materials. Microstructures in heterogeneous catalysts are closely related to the catalytic properties. TEM and related microanalytic techniques are powerful tools in characterising catalysts at atomic level. The obtained structural information is essential to the understanding of correlations between microstructures and catalytic properties. In this lecture note, the general principle of characterization of catalysts by TEM is introduced and the applications on Pt/SiO 2 model system and on VPO catalysts are intensively described.