In-situ characterization techniques for investigations of heterogeneous catalysis

Heterogeneous catalysis plays a key role in many fields, so pursuing catalysts with high efficiency, low-cost, and excellent stability is an essential issue for realizing various applications. There are many factors having influences on performance of nanocatalysts. The achievement of real time observation and manipulation of nanocatalysts during reactions, not only enables designing distinctive materials with desired chemical and physical properties for meeting on-demand applications, but also promotes our ability in comprehending catalysis fundamentals. This work mainly introduces in-situ characterization methods such as Infrared and Ultraviolet–Visible–Near Infrared Spectroscopy, Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy and Transmission Electron Microscopy for the researches of heterogeneous catalysis, and further demonstrates that in-situ TEM can play a vital role in enhancing the catalytic performances of nanocatalysts via tuning these factors. It can be concluded that, the achievement of real-time observation and manipulation of nanocatalysts at atomic precision by using various in-situ methods, not only benefits for their synthesis and applications of nanocatalysts, but also greatly promotes the development of various fields. We wish that this work can lay the foundation and provide guidance for controllable synthesis, elucidating mechanism, and expanding applications of heterogeneous nanocatalysts.