Conspectus
Even after being in business for at least the last 100 years, research
into the field of (heterogeneous) catalysis is still vibrant, both
in academia and in industry. One of the reasons for this is that around
90% of all chemicals and materials used in everyday life are produced
employing catalysis. In 2020, the global catalyst market size reached
$35 billion, and it is still steadily increasing every year. Additionally,
catalysts will be the driving force behind the transition toward sustainable
energy. However, even after having been investigated for 100 years,
we still have not reached the holy grail of developing catalysts from
rational design instead of from trial-and-error. There are two main
reasons for this, indicated by the two so-called “gaps”
between (academic) research and actual catalysis. The first one is
the “pressure gap”, indicating the 13 orders of magnitude
difference in pressure between the ultrahigh vacuum lab conditions
and the atmospheric pressures (and higher) of industrial catalysis.
The second one is the “materials gap”, indicating the
difference in complexity between single-crystal model catalysts of
academic research and the real catalysts, consisting of metallic nanoparticles
on supports, promoters, fillers, and binders. Although over the past
decades significant efforts have been made in closing these gaps,
many steps still have to be taken. In this Account, I will discuss
the steps we have taken at Leiden University to further our fundamental
understanding of heterogeneous catalysis at the (near-)atomic scale.
I will focus on bridging the pressure gap, though we are also working
on closing the materials gap. Over the past years, we developed state-of-the-art
equipment that is able to investigate the (near-)atomic-scale structure
of the catalyst surface during the chemical reaction using several
surface-science-based techniques such as scanning tunneling microscopy,
atomic force microscopy, optical microscopy, and X-ray-based techniques
(surface X-ray diffraction, grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering,
and X-ray reflectivity, in collaboration with ESRF). Simultaneously
with imaging the surface, we can investigate the catalyst’s
performance via mass spectrometry, enabling us to link changes in
the catalyst structure to its activity, selectivity, or stability.
Although we are currently investigating many industrially relevant
catalytic systems, I will here focus the discussion on the oxidation
of platinum during, for example, CO and NO oxidation, the NO reduction
reaction on platinum, and the growth of graphene on liquid (molten)
copper. I will show that to be able to obtain the full picture of
heterogeneous catalysis, the ability to investigate the catalyst at
the (near-)atomic scale
during
the chemical reaction
is a must.