Plasmonic photothermal catalysis for solar-to-fuel conversion: current status and prospects

Abstract

Solar-to-fuel conversion through photocatalytic process is regarded as a promising technology with the potential to reduce the reliance on the dwindling reserved fossil fuels and to support the sustainable development...

Research progress on methane conversion coupling photocatalysis and thermocatalysis

“…The adsorption of reactants, status of intermediates, and the desorption of products play key roles in determining the overall catalytic activity and selectivity. [90][91][92][93][94] When adding catalysts into a reaction system, the reaction pathway is changed and the transition state is formed with lower activation energy (Figure 3B). The photothermal catalysis couples the photocatalytic and thermocatalytic processes, and both of them play key roles in activating reactant molecules and tuning the status of reaction intermediates and determining the conversion direction, instead of an energy conversion between photoenergy and thermal energy, which enhances the catalytic performance (activity and selectivity) for various catalytic transformations.…”

“…Different types of metals and their shape, size, and local coordination environment lead to a different response wavelength of LSPR. 90,[145][146][147][148][149] Hot carriers will be excited on the surface of metal nanostructure under the specific wavelength light excitation, which correspondingly influences the reaction rates. [150][151][152][153][154][155][156][157] The study on Pt-Au catalyst system under UV and visible light irradiation condition exhibits that the CH 4 conversion rate of Pt-Au/SiO 2 catalyst is increased to 53 μmol • g −1 • min −1 , about 2.4 times higher than that of sole thermocatalytic conditions.…”

Plasmonic O2 dissociation and spillover expedite selective oxidation of primary C–H bonds

“…S3 and Table S1). 38,39 The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations reveal that a Ru sphere (diameter of 2 nm) on TiO 2 displays a plasmonic absorption ranging from 100 nm to 600 nm centered at 215 nm (Fig. S4).…”

Nanostructured Photothermal Materials for Environmental and Catalytic Applications

“…According to the extensive research focused on solar energy, there are mainly three types of solar energy utilization strategies: solar-to-thermal, solar-to-electrical, and solar-to-chemical conversions. Solar-to-thermal conversion in the realms of solar heat collection [2,5,6], photothermal seawater evaporation [7,8], and photothermal catalysis [9,10] has been addressed by considerable published research reports in recent years. Solar-to-electrical conversion is principally utilized in solar cells [11,12] and photoelectrical catalysis [13,14], while solar-to-chemical conversion is mostly studied in the following three types of up-hill reactions: photocatalytic water splitting [15,16], photocatalytic CO 2 reduction [17,18], and photocatalytic nitrogen fixation [19].…”