Physical testing transmission electron microscopy

Durability testing takes a long time in an operation environment, which is difficult as normally several thousand hours are necessary to obtain a meaningful conclusion. In the development of durability testing, some in situ and ex situ methods and techniques for material evaluation have been used, such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), CV, EIS and so on. However, new electrochemical and/or physical techniques are desirable to gain a better understanding of durability failure modes and then improve fuel cell durability and reliability. 

The built of realistic clusters or host-guest nanocomposites require effective experimental tools such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images, which illustrate the involved crystalline order both in the core and in the outermost particle siufaces. Second relevant information deals with the experimental vibrational spectra of SiC. The validity of theoretical construction of smaU-size dusters and evaluation of their physical properties should follow the experimental behavior. Also, IR and Raman experiments were performed on the SiC nanopartides and will serve as reference for testing the relevance of the carried out numerical simulations performed. Representative experimental data, required for the initiation of theoretical model, are hereafter reported and consist in morphology and vibrational features of SiC nanopartides. 

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