New five year collaboration agreement by Diamond/Johnson Matthey to invest in world-class materials characterisation

Diamond Light Source and Johnson Matthey invest in world-class materials characterisation

New collaboration agreement will continue to strengthen links between the UK's national synchrotrons and industry, building technical capability to support sustainable technology development.

Diamond Light Source, the UK's synchrotron science facility, and Johnson Matthey, a global leader in sustainable technologies, have today announced a new five-year agreement to continue their collaboration in world-class microscopy at the UK's pioneering electron

Physical Science Imaging Centre (ePSIC), in Harwell, Oxfordshire. ePSIC is the national facility for aberration corrected electron microscopy, providing access to state-of-the-art transmission electron microscopes with expert support from Diamond's electron microscopy scientists.

Johnson Matthey will upgrade its aberration corrected (JEOL) electron microscope with a cutting-edge electron energy loss spectrometer (EELS) from Gatan-Ametek. Supported by a direct detection camera, the new spectrometer will provide enhanced localised compositional and speciation information when analysing materials at the atomic scale, especially for platinum group metals (PGMs).

Enhanced characterisation of PGM catalyst materials is critical to the research and development of sustainable technologies that are driving the net zero energy transition, such as hydrogen fuel cells and the production of sustainable aviation fuel.

This latest investment complements the advanced technologies available to researchers at ePSIC, in addition to the synchrotron and beamline capabilities at Diamond Light Source, offering scientists unrivalled research facilities.

Dr. Elizabeth Shotton, Head of Industrial Liaison at Diamond Light Source comments: "This facility helps to enable some of the most important physical sciences research for the UK. We face unprecedented challenges in developing cleaner and more efficient energy sources for a brighter world, improving our existing manufacturing processes, and more, and Diamond is perfectly poised to help solve these problems, by providing great science infrastructure and expertise to our users."

Dr. Elizabeth Rowsell, OBE, Chief Technology Officer at Johnson Matthey, said, "Our long-standing collaboration with Diamond Light Source has already helped us to develop our sustainable technologies which are catalysing the net zero transition. This next stage of investment takes our advanced characterisation capabilities a step further. The upgraded microscope will open up new insights into our catalysts and materials and help us to find new and improved solutions to driving down automotive emissions, transforming our energy systems, and decarbonising chemicals production."

Prof. Gianluigi Botton, CEO of Diamond Light Source concludes: "When Diamond began this collaboration in 2014, we committed to developing the best scientific tools and facilities for users and businesses solving the UK's biggest challenges. We are proud to support Johnson Matthey and British business as a whole. Now operating with 33 beamlines, electron microscopes, and world-class labs—and about to begin our transformative Diamond-II upgrade programme—we are very excited to see the transformative science that will be delivered in the years to come."

ENDS

For more information: please contact Diamond Communications: Lorna Campbell +44 7836 625999 or Isabelle Boscaro-Clarke +44 1235 778130 Diamond Light Source: www.diamond.ac.uk Twitter: @DiamondLightSou

Diamond Light Source provides industrial and academic user communities with access to state-of-the-art analytical tools to enable world-changing science. Shaped like a huge ring, it works like a giant microscope, accelerating electrons to near light speeds, to produce a light 10 billion times brighter than the Sun, which is then directed off into 33 laboratories known as 'beamlines'. In addition to these, Diamond offers access to several integrated laboratories including the world-class Electron Bio-imaging Centre (eBIC) and the Electron Physical Science Imaging Centre (ePSIC).

Diamond serves as an agent of change, addressing 21st century challenges such as disease, clean energy, food security and more. Since operations started, more than 16,000 researchers from both academia and industry have used Diamond to conduct experiments, with the support of approximately 760 world-class staff. Almost 12,000 scientific articles have been published by our users and scientists.

Funded by the UK Government through the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), and by the Wellcome Trust, Diamond is one of the most advanced scientific facilities in the world, and its pioneering capabilities are helping to keep the UK at the forefront of scientific research.

Diamond was set-up as an independent not for profit company through a joint venture, between the UKRI's Science and Technology Facilities Council and one of the world's largest biomedical charities, the Wellcome Trust—each respectively owning 86% and 14% of the Shareholding.

Provided by Diamond Light Source