Preparation of fragile catalyst materials for TEM
A novel specimen preparation technique for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been developed which allows for the preservation of constituent placement within a variety of diesel and automotive catalyst materials. The standard preparation method for imaging catalyst particles and washcoat constituents has been to use powders scraped from the substrate surface. However, while limited imaging of fine scale structures is possible on clean specimens using this method, all cross-sectional spatial information is lost. Thus, scraped powder specimens cannot be used to directly image surface effects in the TEM or to view large areas of "intact" material in these catalyst systems. Also, for many microscopy investigations such as electron energy loss spectroscopy and high resolution imaging, powders can be too thick. Other preparation techniques have also been used, for example ultramicrotomy and model systems, with some limited success. It is clear that by preparing TEM specimens using this cross-section technique, changes in microstructure to either precious metal particles or washcoat constituents with distance from the exposed surface can be evaluated as a function of aging, engine use, or process modification.