Transmission Electron Microscopy: Essential Support for Materials Synthesis

透射电子显微镜：材料合成的重要支持

• 批准号: EP/P030467/1
• 负责人: Chris Abell
• 金额: $ 246.21万
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2017 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FP030467%2F1
• 关键词: Transmission; Electron; Microscopy; Essential; Support

Advanced functional materials are fundamentally important to developing many new technologies and devices that will shape our future. They will define our ability to create cleaner, cheaper, safer and more efficient design, production, manufacturing processes, and technologies. As such, they will be instrumental in addressing many of the most pressing problems facing the world today in areas such as energy, healthcare and medicine, pollution abatement, food production, and manufacturing. Yet central to the development of these new materials is a proper understanding of the science that underpins both their structures and properties at the atomic and/or molecular level. This can only be achieved through the strategic provision of the most state-of-the-art analytical facilities.In conjunction with the Cambridge Advanced Imaging Centre (CAIC), the Chemistry Department will establish a virtual electron microscopy (EM) hub in the University that offers a unique emphasis on "materials synthesis". Capabilities will comprise bespoke facilities supporting multiple research disciplines. Spearheading this hub will be a 200 kV field emission gun-scanning transmission electron microscope (FEG-S/TEM) with excellent high resolution and STEM imaging capabilities, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) for elucidating chemical composition and bonding, the ability to tomographically reconstruct multiple images to allow the 3D visualization of complex materials and a cryo-holder to enable the analysis not just of so-called 'hard' materials but also the study of 'soft' materials. This TEM-led hub will form one part of a University-wide EM network in which each hub maintains and develops the instrumentation for different specialties and, between them, create the necessary equipment capacity for our research portfolio across Cambridge.'Hard' materials are often highly crystalline and can exhibit long-range order; yet disorder is often critical to their function. They include metals and metal oxides, porous materials such as zeolites and metal-organic frameworks, semiconductors and ceramics. Meanwhile, 'soft' materials include self-assembled metallopolymers, polymer micelles, nano-gels and bio-inspired or biological materials. These present very different analytical challenges and mean that instruments are often designed to cope with one or other sample type. However, the latest generation of TEMs has the ability to interrogate both of these diverse types of sample. This development offers a step-change in the way that the Departments such as Chemistry, which has research groups synthesizing a broad array of hard and soft materials, can approach Advanced Materials characterization. It is now possible to develop an EM hub that caters for such a broad research demographic. This has two game-changing effects on state-of-the-art research. First, the proposed instrument will spearhead an EM hub that will offer a unique opportunity for the cross-fertilization of ideas and techniques between the hard and soft Advanced Materials communities not only in academia, but also in industry. Second, it will provide essential capacity-building to a broad range of research groups, ensuring routine hands-on access to researchers and the ability to triage samples more efficiently than is currently possible, so enhancing the effectiveness with which more detailed analysis on much more specialized instrumentation can be undertaken.The wide-ranging capabilities of the proposed Chemistry/CAIC hub mean that Advanced Materials relevant to a wide range of fields can be interrogated. We expect new data to impact on research in a range of areas, including aerospace, automotives, battery and energy technology, catering and food production, communications, drilling and refining, drug delivery, electronics, healthcare, hygiene, ICT, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, regenerative engineering and sensing.

先进功能材料对于开发许多塑造我们未来的新技术和设备至关重要。它们将定义我们创造更清洁、更便宜、更安全和更高效的设计、生产、制造流程和技术的能力。因此，它们将有助于解决当今世界在能源、医疗保健和医药、污染治理、食品生产和制造业等领域面临的许多最紧迫的问题。然而，开发这些新材料的核心是正确理解支撑其原子和/或分子水平结构和特性的科学。这只能通过战略性地提供最先进的分析设施来实现。化学系将与剑桥高级成像中心（CAIC）合作，在大学内建立一个虚拟电子显微镜（EM）中心它特别强调“材料合成”。能力将包括支持多个研究学科的定制设施。引领该中心的是一台 200 kV 场发射枪扫描透射电子显微镜 (FEG-S/TEM)，具有出色的高分辨率和 STEM 成像能力、能量色散 X 射线光谱 (EDX) 和电子能量损失光谱 (EELS)，可用于阐明化学成分和键合，通过断层扫描重建多个图像以实现复杂材料的 3D 可视化，以及冷冻支架不仅可以分析所谓的“硬”材料，还可以分析“软”材料的研究。这个以 TEM 为主导的中心将成为全校范围内的 EM 网络的一部分，其中每个中心都维护和开发不同专业的仪器，并在它们之间为我们整个剑桥的研究组合创造必要的设备能力。“硬”材料是通常高度结晶并且可以表现出长程有序；然而，紊乱往往对其功能至关重要。它们包括金属和金属氧化物、沸石和金属有机框架等多孔材料、半导体和陶瓷。同时，“软”材料包括自组装金属聚合物、聚合物胶束、纳米凝胶和仿生材料或生物材料。这些带来了截然不同的分析挑战，意味着仪器通常设计用于应对一种或其他样品类型。然而，最新一代的 TEM 能够分析这两种不同类型的样品。这一发展为化学系等部门研究先进材料表征的方式提供了巨大的改变，化学系拥有合成各种硬质和软质材料的研究小组。现在可以开发一个满足如此广泛的研究人群需求的 EM 中心。这对最先进的研究有两个改变游戏规则的影响。首先，拟议的工具将引领一个 EM 中心，该中心将为硬先进材料社区和软先进材料社区之间的思想和技术的交叉融合提供独特的机会，不仅在学术界，而且在工业界。其次，它将为广泛的研究小组提供必要的能力建设，确保研究人员能够进行日常实践，并能够比目前更有效地对样本进行分类，从而提高对更多内容进行更详细分析的有效性。拟议的化学/CAIC中心的广泛功能意味着可以研究与广泛领域相关的先进材料。我们预计新数据将影响一系列领域的研究，包括航空航天、汽车、电池和能源技术、餐饮和食品生产、通信、钻探和精炼、药物输送、电子、医疗保健、卫生、信息通信技术、石化、制药、再生工程和传感。

项目成果

A Kinetic Map of the Influence of Biomimetic Lipid Model Membranes on Aß42 Aggregation.

仿生脂质模型膜对 Aä42 聚集影响的动力学图。

• DOI: 10.17863/cam.92964
• 发表时间: 2023
• 作者: Baumann K

In Vivo Monitoring of Cellular Senescence by Photoacoustic and Fluorescence Imaging Utilizing a Nanostructured Organic Probe

• DOI: 10.1101/2023.07.12.548691
• 发表时间: 2023-07
• 期刊: bioRxiv
• 作者: Andrew G. Baker;H. Ou;Muhamad Hartono;A. B. Popov;Emma L. Brown;J. Joseph;Monika A Golinska;C. Sanghera;Estela González-Gualda;David Macías;Thomas R. Else;H. Greer;A. Vernet;S. Bohndiek;L. Fruk;D. Muñoz-Espín

Microwave-assisted valorization of glycerol to solketal using biomass-derived heterogeneous catalyst

使用生物质衍生的非均相催化剂将甘油微波辅助增值为缩酮醇

• DOI: 10.1016/j.fuel.2023.128190
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Fuel
• 影响因子: 7.4
• 作者: Ao S