Spectroscopy Village

Manfred Schuster and Peter Ellis from Johnson Matthey are the first users (front, middle) on I14 with Principal Beamline Scientist, Paul Quinn (back).

The Diamond Spectroscopy village is formed of six beamlines, four of which are open for user operation and two are currently under commissioning and construction. Thanks to the complementarity of the different beamlines, the Spectroscopy Village supports a science programme that makes use of a very broad range of X-ray energies to perform experiments across diverse time and length scales. This diversity of capability allows the village beamlines to contribute to many different scientific disciplines, from chemistry and catalysis to environmental science, materials science, physics, biology, medicine, and cultural heritage. The development of the beamlines is continuing, and many improvements in data acquisition and analysis have been delivered, along with the development of new and more versatile sample environments.

Read the full village update

I18 - Identifying radioactive species in a decommissioned spent nuclear fuel pond

It is estimated it will cost £117 bn and take more than 100 years to deal with the UK’s legacy of radioactively contaminated waste materials from our nuclear past. This waste includes 2.5 million tons of cementitious materials from power stations: decontamination of this waste greatly reduces its volume and reduces disposal costs enormously and understanding the chemical speciation of radionuclides in the waste is key to optimising decontamination now, and planning for new facilities in the future. During decontamination, knowing the exact nature and form of the radioactive species and how such species adhere to contaminated materials is very important as it allows targeted methods to be developed.
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B18 - Insights into charge compensation through Oxygen redox

Conventional lithium ion batteries work by storing charge through redox changes involving cations. However the storage capacity is limited by the redox capacity of tradition metal ions in the cathode. Newer lithium-rich cathodes on the other hand are able to exceed this limit, leading researchers to believe that the anion must be playing a role. However, the mechanism of behavio had yet to be experimentally verified.
Read more about this B18 highlights.