Studying materials in action
By 
Clare Sansom2025-02-17T09:49:00
Experiments on battery electrodes and fuel cell catalysts while they’re being used – operando spectroscopy – can revolutionise our understanding of these crucial materials. Clare Sansom reports
As the transition to net zero gets underway, more novel materials will be required for batteries and other forms of electricity storage, and as catalysts to convert waste products such as carbon dioxide into fuels and chemicals. Developing new functional materials, and improving existing ones, necessarily involves probing their composition, structure and function all the way down to the molecular and atomic level, and this often involves spectroscopy and microscopy techniques.
One of the ways of dividing up those analytical methods for studying materials at the micro- and nano scale that are grouped under the umbrella term ‘spectroscopy’ involves two main types. Experiments are classed as ex situ if a material is studied outside the device it is part of, or in situ if it is in contact with that device: if an electrode is kept within its battery during the experiment, for example. Furthermore, if that battery is functioning – charging and discharging – the experiment is not only in situ but also operando: a name taken from the Latin for ‘working’.