Issue 12, 2010

Analytical electron tomography mapping of the SiCporeoxidation at the nanoscale

Abstract

Silicon carbide is a ceramic material that has been widely studied because of its potential applications, ranging from electronics to heterogeneous catalysis. Recently, a new type of SiC materials with a medium specific surface area and thermal conductivity, called β-SiC, has attracted overgrowing interest as a new class of catalyst support in several catalytic reactions. A primary electron tomography study, performed in usual mode, has revealed a dual surface structure defined by two types of porosities made of networks of connected channels with sizes larger than 50 nm and ink-bottled pores with sizes spanning from 4 to 50 nm. Depending on the solvent nature, metal nanoparticles could be selectively deposited inside one of the two porosities, a fact that illustrates a selective wetting titration of the two types of surfaces by different liquids. The explaining hypothesis that has been put forward was that this selectivity against solvents is related to the pore surface oxidation degree of the two types of pores. A new technique of analytical electron tomography, where the series of projections used to reconstruct the volume of an object is recorded in energy filtered mode (EFTEM), has been implemented to map the pore oxidation state and to correlate it with the morphology and the accessibility of the porous network. Applied, for the first time, at a nanoscale resolution, this technique allowed us to obtain 3D elemental maps of different elements present in the analysed porous grains, in particular oxygen; we found thus that the interconnected channel pores are more rapidly oxidized than the ink-bottled ones. Alternatively, our study highlights the great interest of this method that opens the way for obtaining precise information on the chemical composition of a 3D surface at a nanometer scale.

Graphical abstract: Analytical electron tomography mapping of the SiC pore oxidation at the nanoscale

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
28 Jun 2010
Accepted
21 Jul 2010
First published
11 Oct 2010

Nanoscale, 2010,2, 2668-2678

Analytical electron tomography mapping of the SiC pore oxidation at the nanoscale

I. Florea, O. Ersen, C. Hirlimann, L. Roiban, A. Deneuve, M. Houllé, I. Janowska, P. Nguyen, C. Pham and C. Pham-Huu, Nanoscale, 2010, 2, 2668 DOI: 10.1039/C0NR00449A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements