Combining X-ray Diffraction and X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy to Unveil Zn Local Environment in Zn-Doped ZrO2 Catalysts

This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 837733 (COZMOS project). XAS measurements on ROCK were supported by a public grant overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the “Investissements d’Avenir” program (reference: ANR-10-EQPX-45). We are grateful to the beamline staff (C. La Fontaine, V. Briois) and to K. A. Lomachenko, A. L. Bugaev, C. Ahoba-Sam, and A. Lazzarini for the help with the XAS measurements at ROCK, Soleil. We are also grateful to P. Ticali and S. Morandi (University of Turin) as well as to the other colleagues involved in the COZMOS project for insightful discussions and support, especially to C. Ahoba-Sam (University of Oslo) and A. Ramirez (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) for catalyst synthesis and catalytic tests, respectively. We also thank G. Fiore for precious advice on Rietveld Refinement method. We are grateful to the reviewers for critically reading the manuscript and helping us in substantially improving this work with their constructive comments.