Measurements of SrTiO3 doped with transition metals

Redox exsolution is a recently discovered “inside-out” route to produce metal supported nanoparticles as promising heterogeneous catalyst for a wide range of applications. In the frame of perovskite oxide SrTiO3 is one of the most used supports due to its chemical and thermal stability as well as its activity in catalysis. In the past few years, it has been doped with a variety of transition metals (e. g. Fe, Ni, Cu) to produce catalysts, and, among these transition metals, of particular interests is the Fe case, being a low cost, highly available active metal. However, Fe alone can’t exsolve, and the presence of Ni is necessary in order to exsolve the metal. The reason for this anomalous behaviour is still under debate, and further investigation are needed. For this reason, SrTiO3 samples co-doped with Fe and Ni (with concentration as low as 0,1%) will be measured with both in situ and ex situ XAS and the results, coupled with EPR spectroscopy, will shed new light on this topic.