Novel method gives scientists ability to peer inside batteries, fuel cells, and other devices as they operate to gain insight that could improve performance Nanomaterials made of particles with dimensions measured in billionths of a meter hold enormous promise for creating more efficient batteries, fuel cells, catalysts, and drug-delivery systems. Seeing how the nanostructured materials inside these devices evolve and interact as they operate is essential to gain insight into ways to optimize performance. But most studies have looked at idealized samples of isolated components, not as they function in operating devices.   Peering inside a catalyst: A new dual-method imaging technique allowed scientists to map the internal nanostructure of these cylindrical catalyst bodies non-destructively. The technique combines computed tomography (CT)—which makes “slices” of the 3-D structure (circles)—with x-ray particle distribution functions (PDFs, shown as graphs), to plot information about the internal nanostructure and chemistry (colors), pixel-by-pixel in three dimensions. The PDFs for the two pixels shown indicate that there are large palladium nanoparticles at the edge of catalyst body, and small palladium nanoparticles in the center (represented as different-sized clusters). The powerful method reveals the structure at many length scales—from the millimeter-scale catalyst body, to the micron-scale arrangements of

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