| Pacific Rim Symposium on Surfaces, Coatings and Interfaces (PacSurf 2016) | |
| Biomaterial Surfaces & Interfaces | Monday Sessions |
| Session BI-MoE |
| Session: | Soft Surface & Biofunctional Coatings |
| Presenter: | Thomas Schulmeyer, SPECS Surface Nano Analysis, Inc. |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
For decades XPS has been the well-accepted standard method for non-destructive chemical analysis of solid surfaces. To fulfill this task, existing XPS tools combine reliable quantitative chemical analysis with comfortable sample handling concepts integrated into fully automated compact designs.
Recently however, it has been possible to develop XPS systems that can work far beyond the standard of high or ultrahigh vacuum conditions. Near Ambient Pressure (NAP) XPS has become a rapidly growing field in research, inspiring many scientist to transfer the method to completely new fields of application. By crossing the pressure gap, new insights in complicated materials systems have become possible using either synchrotron radiation or laboratory X-ray monochromators as excitation sources under NAP conditions.
Based on this experience, SPECS Surface Nano Analysis GmbH has developed two lines of products: a portfolio of research instruments with various setups optimized for different applications of NAP-XPS, and EnviroESCA. Both of these revolutionary tools realize the long existing dream in many analytical laboratories: reproducible chemical surface analysis under any environmental condition. EnviroESCATM allows for different applications, such as extremely fast solid surface analysis of degassing (but also non-degassing) samples, XPS analysis of liquids or liquid-solid interfaces, chemical analysis of biological samples, materials and device analysis under working conditions (in situ/in operando studies of catalysts, electrochemical devices etc.).
In this presentation, the various basic designs showcasing their different applications are introduced. The results primarily show how measurements can be taken from liquids or solid/liquid interfaces, and the essential bits of information that can be derived from these measurements. The applications range from measurements on static and dynamic liquids, biological samples and fuel cells to in-operando measurements on electrodes under potential in static and dynamic electrochemical cells. For the first time, systematic XPS analysis from liquids is possible and evidenced. Thus, realistic opportunities as well as experimental challenges in liquid-XPS analysis will be discussed and summarized.