Plasmon‐Enhanced Electrocatalytic Properties of Rationally Designed Hybrid Nanostructures at a Catalytic Interface

Abstract

In recent years, a promising role of plasmonic metal nanoparticles (NPs) has been demonstrated toward an improvement of the catalytic efficiency of well‐designed hybrid electrocatalysts. In particular, the coupling of plasmonic functionality with the metal‐based core–shell architectures in plasmon‐enhanced electrocatalysis provides a sustainable route to improve the catalytic performances of the catalysts. Herein, the rationally designed AuNPs wrapped with reduced graphene oxide (rGO) spacer along with PdNPs (AuNP@rGO@Pd) as the final composite are reported. The rGO is proposed to promote the reduction of PdO, greatly enhance the conductivity, and catalytic activity of these nanohybrid structures. The plasmon‐enhanced electrocatalytic performance of optimized AuNP@rGO(1)@Pd exhibits an ≈1.9‐ and 1.1‐fold enhanced activity for the hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction, respectively. The final composite also exhibits a superior stability up to 10000 s compared with the commercial Pd/C. The mechanism of the enhanced catalytic performance is monitored through in situ X‐ray absorption spectroscopy by observing the generated electron density under light irradiation. The results demonstrate that the energetic charge carriers are concentrated in the incorporated PdNPs, allowing higher catalytic performances for the overall water‐splitting reaction. The conclusions herein drawn are expected to shed light on upcoming plasmon‐induced electrocatalytic studies with analogous hybrid nanoarchitectures.

Design-controlled synthesis of IrO2 sub-monolayers on Au nanoflowers: marrying plasmonic and electrocatalytic properties

“…In fact, several plasmonic materials have been employed to enhance OER, hydrogen evolution reaction, and oxygen reduction reaction rates under light illumination. [41][42][43][44][45] Unfortunately one of the best OER materials, RuO 2 and IrO 2 , do not support LSPR excitation in the visible or near infrared ranges. 46 However, the range of materials that support LSPR excitation in the visible range is limited to Ag, Au, Cu, Mg, and Al.…”

Enhanced Electrochemistry of Single Plasmonic Nanoparticles

“…To verify the impact of the plasmon excitation in enhancing HER activity, we investigated the wavelength-dependent current density for plasmonic nanoparticles/Co-MOFNs catalyzed HER at À 300 mV (vs. RHE) in Figure 2b and e, which matches well with the plasmon resonance, suggesting that the plasmon excitation is indispensable for promoting HER performance. [29,[32][33][34] To further confirm this, the i-t curves of the plasmonic nanoparticles, Co-MOFNs and the plasmonic nanoparticles/Co-MOFNs composites were recorded at À 300 mV (vs. RHE) with and without the illumination at resonant wavelength. As is clearly seen in Figure 2c and f, the current density of all the three catalytic materials were observed to promptly and reversibly respond to the on-off illumination cycles.…”

Designer Gold‐Framed Palladium Nanocubes for Plasmon‐Enhanced Electrocatalytic Oxidation of Ethanol

“…As shown in Figure S10, the oxidation peak current density increased with increasing intensity of excitation light. Meanwhile, the oxidation peak potential positively shifted with increasing light intensity, which suggest the enhanced catalytic activity of nanocatalysts is mainly attributed to the plasmon‐mediated electron‐hole separation mechanism, rather than the photothermal effect [7a,18] . The mechanism of plasmon‐mediated electron‐hole separation in the hetero‐interface of Au and Pd is shown in Figure 4c.…”