{"id":26387,"date":"2025-05-23T11:51:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T06:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=26387"},"modified":"2025-05-23T11:51:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T06:06:14","slug":"a-new-electron-microscopy-technique-reveals-hydrogen-storage-processes-in-nanoscales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/a-new-electron-microscopy-technique-reveals-hydrogen-storage-processes-in-nanoscales\/","title":{"rendered":"A new electron microscopy technique reveals hydrogen storage processes in nanoscales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Taipei, Taiwan\u2014A research team from National Taiwan University has developed a new electron microscopy technique that enables sensitive atomic number (Z) measurements of samples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The technique, named atomic number electron microscopy (ZEM), is now used to observe hydrogen storage behavior and the associated defect formation and healing processes of palladium at the nanoscale.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This innovation may offer significant improvements for current material characterization tools, especially for quantitatively analyzing light elements or compounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published recently in\u00a0ACS Nano<\/em>, the ZEM takes advantage of its sensitive responses to low Z materials, such as hydrogen (Z = 1) and vacancy defects (Z = 0). These features, which are nearly invisible under traditional electron microscopes, can now be visualized with remarkable clarity using ZEM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLight elements interact only weakly with electrons and photons, making them very difficult to detect,\u201d explains Dr. Chih-Wei Chang, the principal investigator of the paper. \u201cBut with our ZEM platform, we can finally directly observe hydrogen behavior inside metals and even see how it alters the material itself.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team used palladium (Pd), a widely used material for hydrogen storage, as their experimental subject. They found that hydrogen absorption is not uniform but tends to concentrate along grain boundaries and internal defects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more surprisingly, after multiple cycles of hydrogen charging and discharging, the number of defects actually decreased, suggesting that hydrogen may play a role in promoting self-healing within the material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZEM enables non-destructive, quantitative analysis of hydrogen content and defect density, which sets it apart from traditional techniques that destroy the sample during analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOther techniques may be sensitive, but they can\u2019t revisit the same region of a sample,\u201d says Dr. Chang. \u201cZEM allows us to track dynamic changes throughout the hydrogen cycling process, which is critical in hydrogen material studies.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research revealed that during early cycles, hydrogen preferentially fills existing vacancies and voids. As the cycles progress, hydrogen transitions to forming stable metal hydrides. \u201cWe observed two distinct hydrogen uptake behaviors, something that was very difficult to distinguish previously,\u201d the authors note. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This study not only sheds light on how hydrogen is stored but also reveals the causality between hydrogen uptake and defect formation. The research team is continuously working to improve ZEM\u2019s sensitivity and spatial resolution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe hope that ZEM may become an essential tool in uncovering the microscopic secrets of many light-element materials in the future,\u201d said Dr. Chih-Wei Chang.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A research team from National Taiwan University has developed a new electron microscopy technique that enables sensitive atomic number (Z) measurements of samples. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance.jpeg",984,619,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance-200x200.jpeg",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance-675x425.jpeg",675,425,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance-768x483.jpeg",750,472,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance.jpeg",750,472,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance.jpeg",984,619,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance.jpeg",984,619,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance.jpeg",984,619,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance-870x570.jpeg",870,570,true],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance-600x619.jpeg",600,619,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance-600x600.jpeg",600,600,true],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance-760x490.jpeg",760,490,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance-550x360.jpeg",550,360,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance-95x65.jpeg",95,65,true],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance-640x619.jpeg",640,619,true],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance-96x96.jpeg",96,96,true],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/thermal-absorbance-150x94.jpeg",150,94,true]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26389,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26387\/revisions\/26389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}