The principal instrument of the facility is an EasyXAFS300+, providing transmission based XAFS and XES studies between 5 to 18 keV (potentially up to 20 keV) at a resolution of up to 0.2 eVstep-1.
In situ experiments can be run with a dedicated Hiden Catlab Microreactor and Mass Spectrometer set up with gas feed into the EasyXAFS300+
Specifications for each instrument are given below:
Readily accessible access compared to SR sources.
Capable of tuning X-ray source
Easy to swap between both techniques
1.2 kW liquid cooled
(Ag and Mo anode)
100 W air cooled
(W and Pd anode)
Spherically Bent Crystal Analysers (SBCAs)
15 crystals
(Various Ge and Si cuts)
Can tune instrument to minimise harmonics from other elements
operando studies
Catlab microreactor and MS setup (with vaporiser)
In production of in situ cell
Capable of running heated lines input.
Various gas control
8 Mass Flow Controllers
3 – 100 mlmin-1
Perform various experiments requiring complex gas mixes
Change direction of gas feed (both heated lines)
Bypass sample in catlab. Both using heated lines
Can perform studies on catlab and EasyXAFS under the same flow
Vapour generation
vapour pressure equivalent to max liquid temperature ~30 °C
Can perform studies with liquid/volatile reagents
High temperature studies
1-20 °C min-1 heating rates up to 1000 °C
Eurotherm system, to be configured with EasyXAFS cells
Faraday/SEM MS
Mass range – 200 amu
Detection limit – 0.1 ppm
Response time - <500 ms
Can perform operando studies
A singular throughput pellet holder cell is available at the facility.
Higher throughput pellet holder is available. This is the main holder being used at the facility and provides users with multiple XAS without the need of changing samples manually. This can accommodate 7 different ex situ pellet samples, though typically 5 positions are used for samples, 1 for a reference foil and 1 for incident x-ray spectra.
A bespoke holder has been produced to house samples prepared in capillaries. This has the advantage of having the sample in a particular gaseous environment during the experiment and is useful when studying samples which are air sensitive.
An in situ cell is currently in development at the facility which will allow users to collect data under particular gas conditions and temperature. This will take advantage of the DXAF infrastructure which allows for the use of the gas feed from the Hiden Catlab microreactor and mass spectrometry unit. This will be updated upon availability of the cell.
Data processing shall be conducted on dedicated software packages provided by EasyXAFS and Hiden. For more information, please contact the facility. Results shall be exported as .csv files, and further data processing can be conducted (processed files saved within a .prj file). Free XAFS data processing software recommended include:
