The motion of a single atom through a liquid has been captured on camera for the first time. Using a sandwich of materials so thin that they are effectively two-dimensional, the scientists trapped and observed platinum atoms ‘swimming’ along a surface under varying pressures.
The results will help us better understand how the presence of a liquid changes the behavior of the solid it is in contact with – which, in turn, has implications for the development of new substances and materials.
“Given the wide-ranging industrial and scientific importance of such behavior it is truly surprising how much we still have to learn about the fundamentals of how particles act at surfaces in touch with fluids,” UK Sarah Hague, a materials researcher at the University of Manchester, made sense of.
“One reason for the missing information is the absence of techniques capable of obtaining experimental data for solid-liquid interfaces.” When a solid and a liquid come into contact with each other, the behavior of the two substances changes where they meet.
These interactions are important for understanding a wide range of processes and applications, such as the transport of materials within our own bodies or the movement of ions within batteries. As the researchers note, seeing the world on an atomic scale is extremely difficult.
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), which utilizes a light emission to deliver a picture, is one of only a handful of exceptional strategies accessible.
By and by, acquiring dependable information on the way of behaving of molecules in this way has been troublesome. Previous work in graphene liquid cells has been promising, but has yielded conflicting results.
In addition, TEM typically requires a high vacuum environment to operate. This is a problem because many materials do not behave the same under different stress conditions.
Thankfully, a form of TEM has been developed to work in liquid and gaseous environments, which the team used for their research. The next step was to make a special set of microscope “slides” containing the atoms.
Graphene is the ideal material for these experiments, as it is two-dimensional, strong, rootless and impermeable. Based on previous work, the team developed a double graphene liquid cell capable of working with existing TEM technology.
The cell was filled with a precisely controlled saline solution containing platinum atoms, which the team observed moving across the solid surface of molybdenum disulfide. The images revealed some interesting insights. For instance, iotas move quicker in a fluid than outside it, and pick better places on the strong surface to rest.
In addition, the results were different inside and outside the vacuum chamber, suggesting that variations in atmospheric pressure may affect the behavior of the atoms.
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Furthermore, experimental results obtained in vacuum chambers do not necessarily reflect this behavior in the real world.
“In our work we show that studying atomic behavior in space instead of using our liquid cells gives misleading information,” said materials engineer Nick Clarke of the University of Manchester.
“This is a milestone achievement and it’s just the beginning – we’re already using this technique to help develop materials for sustainable chemical processing, leading to the world’s net zero ambitions. required to obtain.”
The researchers said that the material the team studied is related to green hydrogen production, but both their technique and the results they obtained have far-reaching implications.
