Powder X-ray diffraction and heterogeneous catalysis

In this short review, the application of powder X-ray diffraction to the study of heterogeneous catalysis is described. Within the literature, most applications of powder diffraction in heterogeneous catalysis have centred on its use as a fingerprint technique for phase identification/confirmation. However, there is wealth of additional information potentially available, and in this review some studies, which have gone beyond fingerprint applications, are described. Brief descriptions of selected papers detailing the application of in-situ measurements, the determination of catalyst stoichiometry in-situ, the determination of coke location in ZSM-5 catalysts, line profile analysis, Debye Functional Analysis and combined X-ray absorption and diffraction are given. Many, but not all, of these studies have been performed with standard instrumentation, illustrating some of the range of information available in laboratory studies.