Masahide Miura

Extending the potential of x-ray free-electron lasers to industrial applications - An initiatory attempt at coherent diffractive imaging on car-related nanomaterials

Recent advances in x-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) open up new pathways for contributing to industrial research-and-development activities. In this article, we describe our initiatory attempt at using the SPring-8 Angstrom compact free-electron laser (SACLA) for industrial applications. The attempt was conducted by the authors through the industry-academia partnership program initiated by RIKEN, aimed at examining the potential of XFELs for the analysis of car-related nanomaterials. Using the infrastructures developed at SACLA, we performed single-shot coherent diffractive imaging experiments on automotive exhaust catalysts and succeeded in obtaining the reconstructed images. This effort has paved the way for the future use of XFELs in the research-and-development activity of automotive exhaust catalysts.

Enhanced oxygen storage capacity of cation-ordered cerium–zirconium oxide induced by titanium substitution

Herein, we report on the synthesis of Ce0.5Zr0.5-xTixO2 oxygen storage materials prepared via a solution combustion method. Ce0.5Zr0.4Ti0.1O2 showed an outstanding oxygen storage capacity (1310 μmol-O per g) at 200 °C compared to conventional κ-Ce2Zr2O8 (650 μmol-O per g) due to its cation ordering and the formation of weakly bound oxygen atoms induced by Ti substitution.