In Situ and Operando Catalyst Characterization

Dear Colleagues,

The development of new technologies to meet the current energy and environmental challenges requires the acquisition of very fundamental knowledge regarding the structure and activity of catalytic materials at the nanometric scale. With the beginning of the new millennium, two “old” Latin words have attracted the attention of people working in the field of catalyst characterization: in situ and operando. We speak of in situ investigations when the evaluation of the catalyst is made under controlled pressure, atmosphere and temperature conditions, like those encountered during catalysis, but without this automatically implying any temporal evolution. Conversely, we speak of operando when the in situ investigations monitor the temporal evolution of the catalytic system and catalytic performances as the reactions take place. These concepts can be applied to a variety of advanced characterization techniques.  

A particularly challenging endeavor is to derive an accurate correlation between an atomically well-defined site and its catalytic activity. In many cases, standard characterization techniques provide only area-averaged information, so connecting specific figures of merit concerning the reactivity to a single type of catalytic site is not trivial, given that various structural and morphological features can be co-present on the same “real” catalyst. Nowadays, some advanced techniques (e.g., scanning probe microscopies and electron microscopies) can focus on single atomic sites and allow us to observe the atoms at work during the reaction that takes place on the surfaces of a catalyst.  

In this Special Issue, we cordially invite manuscripts that address advanced in situ and operando characterizations of catalysts, electrocatalysts, and, in general, other dynamic processes occurring on surfaces, both through local and defocused probes. We also welcome papers employing in silico approaches to study dynamic processes on surfaces.

Prof. Dr. Gaetano Granozzi
Dr. Tomasz Kosmala
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Surfaces is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• in situ and operando characterization
• structure–activity relationships
• knowledge-based approach for catalysts for energy, environment and industrial applications
• study of the initial stage of the corrosion process
• self-assembly, adsorption and related phenomena
• STM/AFM and electrochemical STM/AFM
• TEM and X-ray adsorption techniques (XANES and EXAFS)
• ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
• scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM)
• fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy
• theoretical and computational studies