Experimental methods in chemical engineering: Raman spectroscopy

When photons impinge on a substrate, most scatter with the same frequency (elastic scattering or Rayleigh dispersion) and only 10(-7) scatter with a different energy (inelastic scattering). This inelastic interaction (Raman scattering) exchanges energy in the region of molecular vibrational transitions for crystalline and amorphous materials. Raman bands in a spectra represent vibrational transitions, like infrared, however the selection rules are different. Typically, the vibrations that are intense in Raman are weak in infrared and vice versa. A remarkable feature of the Raman effect is that it is highly sensitive to nanocrystals, even below 4 nm, which are too small to generate XRD patterns. Plasmonic enhancement, like surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) boost the Raman signal by 10(4), providing single-molecule detection capability. Glass, quartz, and sapphire are transparent to Raman effect (depending on the energy of the incident excitation radiation), which makes it ideal to examine materials under reaction conditions (in-situ cells and operando reactors that operate over a broad range of temperature, pressures, and environments). Raman spectroscopy emerged in the 1930s; however, infrared spectrometry displaced it. With the advent of powerful lasers in the 1970s, more researchers began to apply Raman routinely. In 2019, the Web of Science indexed 20 400 articles mentioning Raman against 50 000 articles mentioning infrared. Chemical engineers apply Raman less frequently than in material science, physical chemistry, and applied physics, with 887 articles vs 6250, 3700, and 3510 for the other disciplines. A bibliometric analysis identified four research clusters centred on thin films and optics, graphene and nanocomposites, nanoparticles and SERS, and photocatalyst.

Automated summary

Raman scattering is an inelastic interaction that exchanges energy in the region of molecular vibrational transitions, highly sensitive to nanocrystals. With the advent of powerful lasers in the 1970s, Raman technology began to be routinely applied in research.