The LCS was founded in 1978 by the merger of the Laboratoire de Catalyse (initiated by François Gault) with the Laboratoire de Spectrochimie. From the outset, Jean-Claude Lavalley defined the LCS as the French center for infrared spectroscopy in catalysis. The use of infrared spectroscopy for the analysis of catalytic materials has thus been developed over the years. In 1990, at the LCS, Jacques Saussey began using in situ IR spectroscopy to study the catalyst surface inside the working reactor, an approach that later became known as operando spectroscopy.
NMR and Raman spectroscopy were added to LCS spectroscopic techniques in 2000, and the operando method was soon applied to these spectroscopies.

One of the scientific objectives of the LCS is to understand and control heterogeneous catalysis at the molecular level. This can be controlled with appropriate and optimized spectroscopic tools. In situ and operando spectroscopy can therefore be the ultimate tools for characterizing and understanding diffusion and kinetics, the nature and role of active sites (metals, electron densities, etc.), and deactivation. These studies are only relevant, however, if the catalyst is studied under continuous flow conditions at concentrations, pressures, temperatures and contact times typical of its use. Consequently, real-time spectroscopy during the reaction, combined with simultaneous activity measurements in a kinetically relevant cell (operando methodology), enable the behavior of a catalytic surface to be understood and characterized in fine detail. Comparable methodologies are also used at the LCS for adsorption and gas separation studies.

For this reason, our research focuses mainly on the following 3 themes:

• New concepts, methods and emerging applications
• Energy vectors and energies of the future
• Environment, waste reduction and pollution control