Master degree in Materials Science

Nowadays the study of the surface chemistry of porous materials is a relevant domain for a variety of fields, including selective adsorption and catalysis.  For this reason, a multi-technique characterization approach is often an imperative step to shed light on the surface sites (nature and number, modification upon functionalization) responsible for these processes and, in parallel, to hypothesize the mechanism involved in the surface-promoted phenomena/reactions.

During the thesis work, an advanced characterization approach will be applied to the study of the acidic  sites of different zeolites. In particular, different zeolitic frameworks will be studied by means of  IR spectroscopy, one of the more powerful characterization tools due to the possibility to use different probe molecules in combination with an investigative technique able to monitor the probe-surface interaction. The use of molecular probes of different nature will allow a clear surface sites speciation and, in parallel, their quantification and the evaluation of their accessibility. Adsorption microcalorimetric measurements with different probe molecues will be carried out as well. Indeed, this experimental tool can be coupled with IR spectroscopy to obtain a set of complementary results, able to build a clearer picture of the nature, the number and the energetic distribution of the sites involved in the surface chemistry.