Structure Characterisation of Nanoporous Materials using State-of-the-art Single-Crystal X-ray and Neutron Diffraction Techniques

Madeleine Helliwell,^a John R. Helliwell,^a Nataša Zabukovec Logar,^b
Gregor Mali,^b Nataša Novak Tušar^b and Venčeslav Kaučič^b

^a School of Chemistry, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
^b National Institute of Chemistry, Hajdrihova 19, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
* Corresponding author: E-mail: Kaucic@ki.si, Natasa.zabukovec@ki.si,John.helliwell@manchester.ac.uk, Madeleine.helliwell@manchester.ac.uk

Abstract
A topical review is given of the use of single-crystal characterisation of nanoporous materials, which span applications ranging from catalysis to hydrogen storage including “green chemistry”. This is set in the context of other techniques for characterisation such as NMR, XAS and EELS. The landscape of synchrotron and neutron sources and instrumentation for structure determination is changing both in advances in current provision and proposed upgrades. The complementarity of and synergy between small and large (ie protein) crystallography in our collaboration is also described. A notable step is the ESRF upgrade programme with routine provision for X-ray beams focussed to 50 nm or less.

Keywords: Zeolite, nanoporous, X-ray diffraction, synchrotron, neutron diffraction, crystallography, ESRF Upgrade;
XAS; NMR; EELS