The catalysis hub launched on 3 March with £12.5 million EPSRC grant. Ian Silverwood from molecular spectroscopy is a co-I. As part of the hub BAG access for QENS was awarded. It is especially aimed at first time QENS users, support is provided from proposal writing to data analysis. The proposals are accessed by an internal hub panel. Successful proposals are awarded up to 24 h. First experiments were run 7 -10 March.

Members of the Molecular Spectroscopy Group, in collaboration with Prof David Lennon (Glasgow University) and staff at Johnson Matthey, have ventured across to IMAT to try neutron imaging in the study of heterogeneous catalysts. They have been developing the capability to measure and analyse data recorded for a catalytic reactor in-situ, successfully probing ethene adsorption and hydrogenation on a Pd/C catalyst. They have just published their most recent results in Scientific Reports.

Research led by Drs. Qilei Song and Anqi Wang (Imperial College London) has been published in Nature including neutron scattering studies led by Dr. Fabrizia Foglia (University College London). Using QENS measurements from the LET and Iris instruments the authors studied the water dynamics in a new generation of synthetic polymer membranes with intrinsic microporosity, tailoring pore size to optimize transport properties in these industrially important materials.