A publication from Pérez-Ramírez group is distinguished as a Hot Paper in the Journal of Materials Chemistry

The article In situ studies during thermal activation of dawsonite-type compounds to oxide catalysts (J. Mater. Chem. 2007, 17, 1222-1229), co-authored by Mohammad S. Yalfani, Marta Santiago and Javier Pérez-Ramírez, has been distinguished as a Hot Paper in the mentioned Journal.The article deals with Dawsonite-type compounds which are attractive precursors for oxide catalysts. These compounds have the ability to accommodate a large variety of divalent and trivalent cations, and calcination leads to mixed oxides with superior properties of component dispersion, surface area, and thermal stability. A detailed understanding of the decomposition process is required to optimize the thermal activation of these materials for prospective catalytic use. The scarce studies available apply traditional ex situ techniques, where the sample is arrested at a certain temperature by quenching the reaction, followed by exposure to atmosphere, handling, and analysis of the product thereby obtained. Ex situ approaches have frequently proved to be unreliable and also time consuming. In situ monitoring of solid-state reactions is highly preferred, since the sample being analyzed is truly representative of the reaction matrix in real time. Thus, this publication applies a combination of in situ techniques to assess the evolution of metal-substituted dawsonite type-compounds towards the final oxide catalysts