Development of scanning electrochemical cell microscopy for real space catalytic imaging

　With increasing demand for hydrogen in recent years, catalysts have been developed to efficiently produce hydrogen instead of expensive precious metals such as platinum. 　Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), which is noted as one of the catalysts, is known to be an excellent catalyst for hydrogen generation by making it a nanosheet for one layer of atoms. Further enhancement of the catalytic capacity of MoS2 requires understanding of what structure of the catalyst contributes to its activity, but the limitations of resolution in conventional Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy have not led to a detailed understanding of the principles that improve the catalytic capacity.
Dr. Takahashi has succeeded in developing the Scanning Electrochemical Cell Microscopy (SECCM), which has greatly improved the resolution from the previous tens of μm to 20 to 50 nm: the world's highest resolution, as an ideal evaluation device for understanding phenomena. In addition, the structure of MoS2 has been elucidated by visualizing (electrochemical imaging) the catalytic active site using SECCM.
Since the SECCM can also be used to modify the catalyst, identify degraded sites, and evaluate catalysts other than the hydrogen generation reaction, it can be applied to various research projects such as photocatalysts and power storage materials, and will contribute to energy-related research in the future.