1 research outputs found
Atomic Resolution Imaging of Nanoscale Structural Ordering in a Complex Metal Oxide Catalyst
The determination of the atomic structure of a functional
material
is crucial to understanding its “structure-to-property”
relationship (e.g., the active sites in a catalyst), which is however
challenging if the structure possesses complex inhomogeneities. Here,
we report an atomic structure study of an important MoVTeO complex
metal oxide catalyst that is potentially useful for the industrially
relevant propane-based BP/SOHIO process. We combined aberration-corrected
scanning transmission electron microscopy with synchrotron powder
X-ray crystallography to explore the structure at both nanoscopic
and macroscopic scales. At the nanoscopic scale, this material exhibits
structural and compositional order within nanosized “domains”,
while the domains show disordered distribution at the macroscopic
scale. We proposed that the intradomain compositional ordering and
the interdomain electric dipolar interaction synergistically induce
the displacement of Te atoms in the Mo–V–O channels,
which determines the geometry of the multifunctional metal oxo-active
sites