Rational design of bimetallic photocatalysts based on plasmonically-derived hot carriers

TY - JOUR

T1 - Rational design of bimetallic photocatalysts based on plasmonically-derived hot carriers

AU - Salmón-Gamboa, Jorge U.

AU - Romero-Gómez, Mayela

AU - Roth, Diane J.

AU - Krasavin, Alexey V.

AU - Wang, Pan

AU - Dickson, Wayne

AU - Zayats, Anatoly V.

N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported by EPSRC (UK) under the Reactive Plasmonics Programme grant (EP/M013812/1). J. U. S.-G. acknowledges a studentship from CONACYT-Mexico. M. R.-G. acknowledges a studentship from SENER-CONACYT-Mexico. We are grateful to S. M. Fairclough for the help with the energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. All the data supporting this research are provided in full in the Results section and available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Publisher Copyright: © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2021. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2021/2/7

Y1 - 2021/2/7

N2 - Hot carriers generated by plasmonic excitations have recently opened up new avenues in photocatalysis. The transfer of these energetic carriers to adjacent molecules can promote chemical transformations that are important for hydrogen generation by water splitting, CO2reduction and degradation of organic pollutants. Here, we have developed and optimised a plasmonic hot-carrier catalytic system based on silica nanoparticles decorated with plasmonic gold nanoparticles as a source of hot carriers, equipped with platinum nanoclusters as co-catalyst for the enhancement of hot-carrier extraction. The latter plays a triple role by providing: a surface favourable for molecular adsorption; hot-electron generation near the nanoclusters due to field enhancement effects and electron momentum relaxation facilitating the electron transfer across the metal surface, exactly where molecules are adsorbed. The combination of plasmonic and catalytic metals in nano-heterostructured devices provides a new platform for photocatalytic processes and is of significant interest for future solar-based clean technologies.

AB - Hot carriers generated by plasmonic excitations have recently opened up new avenues in photocatalysis. The transfer of these energetic carriers to adjacent molecules can promote chemical transformations that are important for hydrogen generation by water splitting, CO2reduction and degradation of organic pollutants. Here, we have developed and optimised a plasmonic hot-carrier catalytic system based on silica nanoparticles decorated with plasmonic gold nanoparticles as a source of hot carriers, equipped with platinum nanoclusters as co-catalyst for the enhancement of hot-carrier extraction. The latter plays a triple role by providing: a surface favourable for molecular adsorption; hot-electron generation near the nanoclusters due to field enhancement effects and electron momentum relaxation facilitating the electron transfer across the metal surface, exactly where molecules are adsorbed. The combination of plasmonic and catalytic metals in nano-heterostructured devices provides a new platform for photocatalytic processes and is of significant interest for future solar-based clean technologies.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100718037&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1039/d0na00728e

DO - 10.1039/d0na00728e

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85100718037

SN - 2516-0230

VL - 3

SP - 767

EP - 780

JO - Nanoscale Advances

JF - Nanoscale Advances

IS - 3

ER -