Period: 01.05.2025 to 30.05.2025
Lectures: Operando X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) for Sustainable Chemistry and Catalysis
Guest professor at the Faculty of Technical Chemistry, Institute of Materials Chemistry

Olga V. Safonova received her PhD in inorganic chemistry from Lomonosov Moscow State University, where she studied the interaction of gas molecules with the surface of semiconductor gas sensors. After her PhD, she worked as a research associate at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (France), where she developed methods of X-ray absorption and emission spectroscopy for heterogeneous catalysts. Since 2010, she has been a senior scientist at the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland), where her group's research focuses on the development of advanced X-ray spectroscopy methods and mechanistic studies of CO₂ hydrogenation and selective oxidation catalysts.

At TU Wien, Olga V. Safonova holds the course Operando X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) for Sustainable Chemistry and Catalysis. XAS is a unique method for mechanistic studies of thermo-, electro- and photocatalysts and other advanced materials. The method enables the extraction of element-specific, quantitative information on the electronic and local geometric structure of atoms in crystalline phases, nanocrystals, clusters, molecules in liquids and highly dispersed surface species typically found in catalysis and other functional materials. In addition, XAS can be used under realistic (operando) reaction conditions without material or pressure gaps. The corresponding knowledge is therefore of central importance for the education of Master's students in the fields of materials science, physical chemistry and chemical engineering.