LIGHT: advanced Light mIcroscopy for Green cHemisTry. (LIGHT)

Nanoscience and nanotechnology have become crucial in the development of novel materials for catalysis research. In general, in depth characterizations of catalysts consists of determining the catalysts structure and chemical composition. In stark contrast, insight into the organic chemical transformations is mostly limited to bulk analysis of reaction mixtures. In order to gain detailed insight into the performance of these highly dispersed materials novel in situ characterization tools and techniques are required. Optical microscopy can take a prominent place in this research because of its molecular sensitivity and noninvasiveness. The LIGHT project proposes to develop optical microscopy based tools that enable clear-cut assignments of the overall catalytic activity of a powder to specific molecular sites or nano-scale features within that powder. In order to validate the proposed techniques important questions in catalysis research will be tackled ranging from acid-base to photocatalysis. Various materials like zeolites, clays, oxides and metal-organic frameworks will be investigated in great detail, at the single particle level or in microreactors.
With the generated nano-scale structure-activity relations, current catalyst synthesis can be rationalized and optimized. These more efficient catalysts are crucial in the development of better performing, green chemical processes.

Keywords:coherent Raman scattering, single molecule, fluorescence, heterogeneous catalysis

Disciplines:Inorganic chemistry, Organic chemistry, Theoretical and computational chemistry, Other chemical sciences