The hot holes with mild oxidizing ability produced by palsmonic noble metal provide an ideal alternative for photocatalytic selective oxidation. In this work, BiOCl with oxygen vacancy (BiOCl-OV) is photosensitized...
Interface engineering in hybrid plasmonic metal/semiconductor
heterostructures
is an efficient approach to enhance the catalytic performance of photocatalysts
and photoelectrochemical cells in harvesting and converting sunlight,
especially in the range of visible light. Plasmon-induced hot electron
injection plays a crucial role in the transfer of plasmonic energy
from a plasmonic metal to semiconductor in a plasmonic metal/semiconductor
system. Herein, the efficient injection and utilization of hot electrons
are achieved by fabrication of a Au@ZnIn2S4/Ti3C2 (Au@ZIS/Ti3C2) system,
in which the core–shell Au@ZIS nanoparticles with well-defined
interfaces are anchored on the 2D Ti3C2 surface.
The core–shell Au@ZIS nanostructure is first constructed by
a cation exchange reaction method. The well-defined interface of the
Au core and ZIS shell optimizes the electron transfer pathway and
greatly promotes the extraction of hot electrons from Au to ZIS. Furthermore,
the electrons concentrated on ZIS can be further transferred to Ti3C2 owing to its excellent electron mobility and
conductivity, leading to highly efficient separation and transfer
of electrons through a two-step transfer process. The activities of
photoelectrochemical (PEC) seawater splitting demonstrate that the
integration of Au and ZIS into an optimized core–shell structure
and its further modification by Ti3C2 results
in a drastic improvement in PEC activity. Therefore, Au@ZIS/Ti3C2 shows the highest photocurrent density and smallest
charge transfer resistance among various samples, accompanied by 6.5
and 10.8 orders of enhancement in PEC H2 evolution compared
to reference samples of ZIS/Ti3C2 and Au/Ti3C2. Elaborate design and construction of core–shell
plasmonic metal@semiconductor nanostructure with a well-defined interface
and 2D MXene support would provide a feasible and promising method
to enhance the performance of PEC seawater splitting.
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