In situ neutron diffraction was used to study the structural properties of an industrial ammonia synthesis catalyst under working conditions similar to those of the Haber–Bosch process. Despite favorable thermodynamics, no indications of reversible bulk nitridation of the iron catalyst was observed in a self‐generated ammonia concentration of 12 vol % at 425 °C and 75 bar after 88 h on stream.

Long-term stability of catalysts is an important factor in the chemical industry. This factor is often underestimated in academic testing methods, which may lead to a time gap in the field of catalytic research. The deactivation behavior of an industrially relevant Cu/ZnO/Al2 O3 catalyst for the synthesis of methanol is reported over a period of 148 days time-on-stream (TOS). The process was investigated by a combination of quasi in situ and ex situ analysis techniques. The results show that ZnO is the most dynamic species in the catalyst, whereas only slight changes can be observed in the Cu nanoparticles. Thus, the deactivation of this catalyst is driven by the changes in the ZnO moieties. Our findings indicate that methanol synthesis is an interfacially mediated process between Cu and ZnO.

Studying the workplace: An industrial methanol synthesis catalyst operating at high pressure was studied by in situ neutron diffraction. The peculiar microstructure of Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 nanocatalysts was found to be stable under reaction conditions. Stacking fault annealing and brass formation was only observed at temperatures higher than used in the methanol synthesis process, providing support for active role of defects in this catalyst system.

Spatially resolved profile measurements, Raman spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and microkinetic modeling have been used to study the catalytic partial oxidation of methane on Pt. The measured species profiles through Pt coated foam catalysts exhibit a two-zone structure: an abrupt change in reaction rates separates the fast exothermic oxidation chemistry at the entrance of the reactor from the slow endothermic reforming chemistry. Spatially resolved Raman spectroscopy and electron microscopy confirm that the position of the mechanistic change could be correlated with Pt transportation and formation of carbonaceous deposits blocking the majority of active Pt sites in the reforming zone. The species profiles were simulated using a pseudo-2D heterogeneous model, which includes heat and mass transport limitations, and two state-of-the-art chemical kinetic mechanisms. Although both mechanisms are in quantitative agreement with the oxygen profiles, the two mechanisms differ substantially in their predictions of the branching ratio between partial and complete oxidation, as well as surface site coverages. The experimentally observed change in reaction rates is attributed to carbon formation, which the mechanisms are unable to reproduce, since they do not include carbon–carbon coupling reactions

The application of different methods for a microstructural analysis of functional catalysts is reported for the example of different Cu/ZnO-based methanol synthesis catalysts. Transmission electron microscopy and diffraction were used as complementary techniques to extract information on the size and the defect concentration of the Cu nano-crystallites. The results, strengths and limitations of the two techniques and of different evaluation methods for line profile analysis of diffraction data including Rietveld-refinement, Scherrer- and (modified) Williamson–Hall-analyses, single peak deconvolution and whole powder pattern modeling are compared and critically discussed. It was found that in comparison with a macrocrystalline pure Cu sample, the catalysts were not only characterized by a smaller crystallite size, but also by a high concentration of lattice defects, in particular stacking faults. Neutron diffraction was introduced as a valuable tool for such analysis, because of the larger number of higher-order diffraction peaks that can be detected with this method. An attempt is reported to quantify the different types of defects for a selected catalys