Neutron diffraction is ideal for determining the structure of materials containing light atoms such as hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen.

We need to understand the structure of materials before we can understand their properties and how they react.
Why structure is important ...

Areas of application

Catalysts for the chemical industry
Earth and planetary science
Environmentally-friendly fuels
Hydrogen-storage materials
Materials for batteries and sensors
Oil prospecting
Pharmaceutical
Reaction chemistry
Toxic waste treatment

Better batteries energy storage materials

Following the in-situ evolution of chemical reactions inside complex devices is possible thanks to neutrons because of the relative transparency of metals to neutrons. This is why real-time neutron diffraction studies of materials using operating batteries are helping to improve their performance.

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Vivaldi sets new frontiers in chemical crystallography

The new capabilities offered by thermal-neutron Laue diffraction and VIVALDI to frontier problems in chemistry are illustrated by four recent and quite different studies: the location of H in the Li cage of an organometallic complex; the C-H...F hydrogen bonding in a Zr-based organometallic catalytic complex; a multi-temperature study of the molecular disorder in pentachloronitrobenzene; and a charge-density study of the smelly organic molecule, coumarin, a chemical precursor to many laser dyes.

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Engineering oxygen transport

The requirements for new and clean energy sources, such as solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFC), have stimulated considerable research activities in the last decade on solid oxygen ion conductors operating at moderate temperatures. SOFCs would offer enormous ecological benefit, provided that suitable materials with high oxygen permeability can be developed to operate at moderate temperatures. In order to better understand low-temperature oxygen diffusion mechanisms, the oxygen intercalation into SrCoO2.5 was investigated by in situ neutron diffraction and X-ray absorption spectroscopy at ambient temperature. In particular, three-dimensional oxygen ordering and evidence of the formation of O- species during the intercalation were observed for the first time.

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The selection of highlights hereafter - extracted from the ILL annual reports - give a flavour of what can be achieved with neutrons in the field.

• Oxidation mechanisms of nuclear fuels elucidated by neutron diffraction (2009)
  
• Structural aspects of photo-induced phase transitions in spin-crossover compounds (2007)
• Crystal structure of the oxidised positive electrodes in nickel batteries (2007)
• The formation of a cyclic water hexamer in zeolite NaX (2006)
• Fast characterisation method for strongly textured domains (2005)
• First observation of four-coordinate hydrogen (2005)
• Hydrogen storage in a metal-organic framework (2005)