In situ EELS study of dehydration of Al(OH)₃ by electron beam irradiation.

Nan Jiang, John C H Spence

Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1504, USA. nan.jiang@asu.edu

Ultramicroscopy 2011 Jun

filter terms:

The dehydration of Al(OH)₃ by an electron beam has been investigated using the time-dependent electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) technique. Based on an analysis of low-loss EELS, Al L₂₃ and O K-edge, it is found that the processes are initially induced by the loss of H, followed by sputtering of O, which induce local structural changes. Some of the octahedrally coordinated Al transfer to tetrahedrally coordinated Al. The time-dependent O K-edge shows that the pre-edge peak in the O K-edge of Al(OH)₃ is induced by the formation of unpaired O, rather than an intrinsic feature of the OH bond. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.