For more than 20 years, Matt Maschmann, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Missouri, has worked with materials that require specialized technology — electron microscopes — to be seen by the human eye.

“When we deal with materials interacting on a nanoscale level, we can’t physically see the processes that are occurring, like the charging and discharging of a battery, for instance, without the help of an electron microscope,” Maschmann said.

Now, with the support of a two-year, $800,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and an additional $300,000 from the university, Maschmann and a team of researchers at MU are purchasing new equipment from Protochips which will allow researchers to conduct scientific experiments while simultaneously viewing reactions as they happen in real time — under the lens of a Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra 300 Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), housed in the Electron Microscopy Core (EMC) facility located in the Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health building.