Catalysis on the nanoscale plays an important role on the one hand in terms of an enormous increase of efficiency/transformation rate on the other in the formation of defined nanostructures and functionalized materials. In both the morphologic properties of the catalyst plays an important role as well as the metal specific chemical properties. The possibility of controlled regulation and adaption of these parameters will lead to maximum gain and highest selectivity in chemical reactions and tap the full potential of catalysis in industry and the development of novel nanostructures. However neither the catalytic mechanisms are understood on an atomic level nor is there systematic studies on a fundamental base to understand why different metal type deviate in their applicability.
In our experiments we perform atomically resolved in-situ imaging of chemical reactions between d-elemental metals and a carbon environment inside SWNTs by means of aberration-corrected high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The experiments aim to fundamentally understand and compare the catalytic properties of different catalysts by variation of a large range of transition-metals in equivalent experiments. This enables a detailed study of the processes essentially characterizing the aptitude and applications of the different metals, such as formation of metastable transient structures, formation of ordered carbon networks in different morphologies, annealing and reorganization processes and ability to assimilate carbon source material. Moreover the investigations allow a study of intermediates and the underlying chemical properties of Pi- and Sigma- bonding, metal-cohesive forces and solubility of carbon in metal.