Understanding and predicting crystal growth is fundamental to the control of functionality in modern materials. Despite investigations for more than one hundred years1,2,3,4,5, it is only recently that the molecular intricacies of these processes have been revealed by scanning probe microscopy...

When SAPO-34 is used as an industrial MTO catalyst, structural transformations leading to permanent deactivation are inevitable. The performance loss is linked principally to a redistribution of Si in the material, leading to the formation of Si-islands/aggregates with a concomitant loss of Brønsted...