Advanced materials synthesis and characterization facilities

The preparation of advanced materials with tailored properties for certain applications require careful understanding of the structure-property relationship of materials. This can be achieved by detailed characterization of material properties and finding the relation to performance. The advanced materials synthesis and characterization facilities at RICH is a multipurpose lab where materials can be synthesize and characterize for ad-hoc applications, covering not only the current areas of focus of the center, but also for other applications, including catalysis, removal of contaminants, water treatment, etc.

Some of the facilities and tools in the center related to advanced materials synthesis and characterization are listed as follows:

  • Microreaction calorimeter: allows the analysis of heat capacity, heat of phase transition of liquid and solid sample, and heat of the reaction at different temperatures. Especially, it can work as a flow calorimeter to analyze heat of CO2 adsorption/absorption and CO2 loading simultaneously. It is equipped with a gas mixer to allow the analysis of a binary gas systems.
  • Total Organic Carbon Analyzer (TOC): Analyze total organic and inorganic carbon, and total bound nitrogen in both liquid and solid samples.
  • Sieve AS 200 shaker: It is used to analyze and classify particulate materials with particle size from 20 µm to 25 mm.
  • Density meter: DMA 4500 M density meter measures the density of solutions at low and high pressures.
  • Autoclave reactors for conventional and microwave growth of porous materials
  • Lab Vacuum Oven (Thermo Fisher): Ambient to 300 °C, 50 L capacity. Dry up to six times faster than when using conventional units.
  • Analytical balances
  • Mechanical Ovens
  • Vacuum oven: heating up to 200C at 0.01 mbar.
  • Heating/stirring plates
  • Tubular furnace
  • Centrifuge
  • Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy: collect FTIR spectra using reaction chamber at temperature up to 910C and pressure of 133 mPa-133 kPa.

Fig. 1: Microreaction Calorimeter available at the Advanced Materials lab at RICH