Scientists working with precision instruments know that power cords and cabling, vibrations from air-handling units and other factors can cause epic imaging failures. The challenge is eliminating the effects of these essential elements from the laboratory. That’s why scientists and engineers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) worked with the building’s architects to design a space within the new Energy Sciences Center that would be protected from these intrusions.
The new high-performance instrumentation lab provides four isolated cells doubly protected from any external vibrations by separate vibration-dampening foundations and an inlaid vibration-free table to house delicate instruments, including some of the world’s most vibration-sensitive electron microscopes. Power cords and electronic cabling are housed in a sealed chamber isolated from the instruments, and the temperature in each chamber varies less than 0.1 degree Celsius while the instruments are in use.
These scientists are not just after pretty pictures. They are developing new materials and working to improve the efficiency of the chemical transformations that will someday provide renewable energy for our homes and businesses. The stakes are high for these scientists. When you are trying to see the placement of each individual atom in a new material created in the laboratory, vibrations, temperature fluctuations, and stray electromagnetic rays are the enemy.
In recent years, scientists have discovered that certain arrangements of individual atoms supported on a surface, like a cherry on a cupcake, make them special. These distinctive materials confer useful properties. For instance, some single atom catalysts show promise for promoting conversion of biomass and waste carbon at room temperature and at significantly lower costs not possible today. These single atom catalysts are the subject of intense research to figure out how to make them operate on a large scale over a long period of time. And those investigations require studying them, taking atomic-scale “pictures” of them, and correlating their structure to their activity.
“We are searching for metal–oxide supports with a high density of sites that interact strongly with catalytically active metal atoms,” said Zdenek Dohnálek, a PNNL chemist who studies the detailed structure and function of catalysts. “These kind of catalysts are highly sought after for converting biomass into fuels and commodity chemicals. We are looking at how they evolve, move, and transform on surfaces as a function of temperature and time.”
From finding new ways to transform plastic waste into useful products to examining structures at the nanoscale, the research done in this facility will rely on crystal-clear images created in the high-performance instrumentation lab.
Image – The ultra-high vacuum, low-temperature scanning probe microscope seen here will be moved to the new high-performance instrumentation lab in the Energy Sciences Center in 2022. Courtesy of Andrea Starr|Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
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