Sam Sullivan-Allsop, Nick Clark, Wendong Wang, Rongsheng Cai, William Thornley, David G. Hopkinson, James G. McHugh, Ben Davies, Samuel Pattisson, Nicholas F. Dummer, Rui Zhang, Matthew Lindley, Gareth Tainton, Jack Harrison, Hugo De Latour, Joseph Parker, Joshua Swindell, Eli G. Castanon, Amy Carl, David J. Lewis, Natalia Martsinovich, Christopher S. Allen, Mohsen Danaie, Andrew J. Logsdail, Vladimir Fal’ko, Graham J. Hutchings, Alex Summerfield, Roman Gorbachev, Sarah J. Haigh
The structure and dynamics of adsorbed atoms (adatoms) at solid-liquid interfaces determine the performance of advanced catalysts, electrochemical devices, molecular separation technologies, and metal extraction from waste streams. However, in situ investigations of atomically dispersed metals in various chemical environments have been prevented by insufficient imaging resolution and solvent incompatibility. In this study, we combined a specimen design that provides atomic resolution in liquid-phase electron microscopy with deep learning–enabled analysis to explore the interactions between gold adatoms, graphite support, and the solvent collectively. We tracked the locations of >10 6 graphite-supported gold adatoms, dimers, and larger clusters in five solvents. Although their initial atomic dispersion was determined by the solvent polarity, fast drying kinetics at low temperature was required for optimizing catalytic performance.