Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

Gas adsorption studies provide a wealth of key information for the modern study of a wide range of solid materials. The amount of gas adsorbed by a solid, how it is adsorbed and the energy with which it is adsorbed all provide important data on the microstructure of a solid including surface area, pore sizes and chemical sites on the surfaces. Such a fundamental method has wide application and the research impacted in this application spans carbon capture and storage, natural gas purification, new catalysts, better electrodes for batteries, better cement, and better ways to extract oil. The six sizeable applicant teams span three departments in science and engineering. A highly useful technique brings high demand. This coupled with the lengthy nature of experiments means unmanageable queues for existing equipment. The present request is for a 6-sample gas adsorption analyzer to remove multi-month research bottlenecks. It will raise the accessible analysis capacity at the university from 8 to 14 stations. It will also permit an existing piece of equipment to be converted to focus on critical, but very time-consuming, water sorption analyses. Water sorption is a key complementary piece of data for gas separation and materials performance (e.g. flue gas, water proofing, electrode flooding) in real world systems and a devoted instrument does not exist at the university.