Nanostructures: Gold Nanorod@TiO₂ Yolk‐Shell Nanostructures for Visible‐Light‐Driven Photocatalytic Oxidation of Benzyl Alcohol (Small 16/2015)

Abstract

Selective oxidation of alcohols to corresponding aldehydes and ketones is an essential process for the synthesis of various chemicals. J. Gong and co‐workers describe the design and synthesis of gold nanorod@TiO2 yolk–shell catalysts via an improved silica template method as an efficient visible light‐driven photocatalyst. On page 1892, with a hollow TiO2 shell and a tunable cylindrical gold core, the catalyst exhibits a high surface area and wide absorption range from UV to NIR. A remarkable photochemical activity is obtained when such catalyst applied to the oxidation of benzyl alcohol.

Boosting Hot Electron-Driven Photocatalysis through Anisotropic Plasmonic Nanoparticles with Hot Spots in Au–TiO2 Nanoarchitectures

“…Since all the plasmonic nanoparticles in this study present plasmon excitations with energies wellabove this threshold, their relative energies are not supposed to play a major role in the electron injection mechanism, in contrast to what has been previously postulated. 23 Since the generation of hot electrons depends on the shape of plasmonic nanoparticles, the extinction spectra of the three morphologies included in this study have been calculated with the COMSOL software. The experimental UV-visible-NIR spectra of the different-shaped AuNPs before and after their integration into the final composites does not lead to a noticeable change in the positions of their original plasmon resonances (Figure 2), indicating that the averaged dielectric function of a matrix medium for the composites can be considered almost unaffected.…”

“…Li et al have introduced three different aspect ratio (AR) Au nanorods (AuNRs) into porous TiO2 shells observing that the catalytic efficiency of these composites is altered as the rod AR is increased. 23 In this case, the AuNR core with an intermediate AR value exhibits a greater catalytic effect for the oxidation of benzyl alcohol than that observed in the presence of those with a higher and lower aspect ratio. 23 In this respect, it is claimed that while an increased AR favors the adsorption of the reactants thus improving the oxidation, a further rise in this value shifts the plasmon band to a longer wavelength region with a lower photon energy which results in the decrease of the photocatalytic performance.…”

Template-free synthesis of Mn2+ doped hierarchical CuS yolk–shell microspheres for photocatalytic reduction of Cr(vi)

“…Various synthetic routes have been employed to fabricate yolk-shell structures, including the hard-template method, soft-template method, and hydrothermal and solvothermal methods. [37][38][39] However, these methods have some deficiencies, for example, they need expensive template materials and special/expensive organic protective agents (such as PVP, 40 CTAB 41 and EDTA 42 ) to obtain a special morphology and structure. And also, the templates need to be removed after obtaining the yolk-shell structure.…”

Highly efficient polyethylene glycol‐functionalised gold nanorods for photothermal ablation of hepatocellular carcinoma cells

“…Gold nanoparticles (GNPs), with promising photothermal properties, have received extensive attention in many research areas such as biology [1], medicine [2, 3], catalysis [4], and bio‐sensors [5]. The synthesis methods and photothermal properties of GNPs, including gold nanospheres [6, 7], gold nano‐hexapods [8], gold nanoshells [9], gold nanostars [10], gold nanorods (GNRs) [11, 12], and gold nanocages [13] have been reported and characterised.…”