To prevent sintering, ozone treatment at mild temperature is used to remove the capping agent from supported Au nanoparticles. The Au nanoparticles are first synthesized as a colloidal solution and then supported on alumina. Fourier Transform Infra Red (FTIR) shows the capping agent is removed completely. Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and catalytic test reactions show the Au does not sinter significantly upon low temperature ozone treatment.

The objectives of this PhD project are to address the challenges of in-situ TEM and introduce a new generation of in-situ TEM equipment. In Chapter 2 the in-situ TEM facilities are introduced, focusing on the nanoreactor that has gone through quite some development stages during this project. Several types of in-situ TEM nanoreactors were fabricated using Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) technology, which enables miniaturisation of the complete catalytic reactor (reactor column, heating system and gas system). The different generations of nanoreactors are the glued nanoreactor (GNR), the wafer bonded