New Tools for Catalysis at NIST-operated X-ray Beamlines

A growing number of catalyst characterization tools have been developed at the hard and soft X-ray beamlines NIST operates at the National Synchrotron Light Source II.  I will provide a brief overview of these capabilities in the context of recent dehydrogenation and CO₂ valorization studies.  At the soft X-ray beamline, a NIST-built transition-edge sensor array enabled partial fluorescence yield near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) measurements.  This technique has a long history of application to carbon- and oxygen-based adsorbates and is also particularly useful for studies of dilute metals in insulating materials, a recurring problem in catalysis.  In addition, I will give a brief overview of a recently launched project to develop and install first-of-kind instrumentation for high-throughput, operando resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) experiments on industrial catalysts at the soft X-ray beamline.  At the hard X-ray beamline, we have developed in situ XAFS capabilities for complementary studies on heterogeneous catalysts.  These tools are ideal for tracking the metals in a catalyst throughout its activation and use.  As an example, I will highlight recent measurements of transition metal-exchanged zeolites which monitored the coordination structure and electronic structure of the metal during reaction.  This will include a description of the integrated gas pulsing/handling and mass spectrometry facilities at the beamline.