Small-Angle Scattering in Porous Materials: an overview highlighting data-analysis challenges

Countless technologies and chemical processes make use of nanoporous materials: heterogeneous catalysis, including electrochemical reactions in fuel-cell electrodes, adsorption separation processes, kinetically selective membrane processes, are but a few examples. Small-angle scattering of either x-rays (SAXS) or neutrons (SANS) is one of the few experimental methods available for the in situ analysis of phenomena in this type of materials at the mesoscopic scale. In this presentation, we briefly review some recent applications of small-angle scattering to empty and loaded mesoporous solids [1-3]. A particular focus is put on the data analysis challenges, whereby the scattered intensity is converted to real-space structures with nanometer resolution [4,5].