Surface plasmon resonance-mediated photocatalysis by noble metal-based composites under visible light

Abstract

Harvesting abundant and renewable sunlight in energy production and environmental remediation is an emerging research topic. Indeed, research on solar-driven heterogeneous photocatalysis based on surface plasmon resonance has seen rapid growth and potentially opens a technologically promising avenue that can benefit the sustainable development of global energy and the environment. This review briefly summarizes recent advances in the synthesis and photocatalytic properties of plasmonic composites (e.g., hybrid structures) formed by noble metal (e.g., gold, silver) nanoparticles dispersed on a variety of substrates that are composed of metal oxides, silver halides, graphene oxide, among others. Brief introduction of surface plasmon resonance and the synthesis of noble metal-based composites are given, followed by highlighting diverse applications of plasmonic photocatalysts in mineralization of organic pollutants, organic synthesis and water splitting. Insights into surface plasmon resonancemediated photocatalysis not only impact the basic science of heterogeneous photocatalysis, but generate new concepts guiding practical technologies such as wastewater treatment, air purification, selective oxidation reactions, selective reduction reactions, and solar-to-hydrogen energy conversion in an energy efficient and environmentally benign approach. This review ends with a summary and perspectives.

Hydrogen Generation through Solar Photocatalytic Processes: A Review of the Configuration and the Properties of Effective Metal-Based Semiconductor Nanomaterials

“…Incorporating nanosized metal particles on titanium dioxide can also lead to an increased photoactivity under visible light irradiation. Such a phenomenon, also known as "Local Surface Plasmonic Resonance" (LSPR) [36,37], occurs when the electromagnetic field has an oscillation frequency in phase with free electrons on the metal [38]. Thus, nanosized metal particles (i) act as antennas by promoting visible light absorption and (ii) sensitize titanium dioxide by favoring the flux Incorporating nanosized metal particles on titanium dioxide can also lead to an increased photoactivity under visible light irradiation.…”

“…Thus, nanosized metal particles (i) act as antennas by promoting visible light absorption and (ii) sensitize titanium dioxide by favoring the flux Incorporating nanosized metal particles on titanium dioxide can also lead to an increased photoactivity under visible light irradiation. Such a phenomenon, also known as "Local Surface Plasmonic Resonance" (LSPR) [36,37], occurs when the electromagnetic field has an oscillation frequency in phase with free electrons on the metal [38]. Thus, nanosized metal particles (i) act as antennas by promoting visible light absorption and (ii) sensitize titanium dioxide by favoring the flux of charge carriers on to the conduction band of the semiconductor in the so-called "Process of Plasmon-Induced Resonance Energy Transfer" (PIRET) [39].…”

Carbon coated Au/TiO2 mesoporous microspheres: a novel selective photocatalyst

“…After that, huge progress towards improving the photocatalytic efficiency of TiO2 has been made [7], such as band-tailoring by element doping [8,9], constructing mesoporous and/or array structures [10][11][12][13], and plasmonic sensitizing [14,15]. Nevertheless, TiO2 is generally regarded as non-selective because the degradation of organic compounds on TiO2 is enabled by nonselective oxidizing agents (e.g., OH radical) [16]. In most cases, the contaminated system contains a large variety of organic pollutants, nonselective oxidizing agents will generally degrade pollutants with high-level, leading to the low degradation efficiency of target pollutants.…”

“…Therefore, developing photocatalysts with desirable selectivity to transformation and purification of targeted pollutants is of great importance in water purification [17][18][19][20]. Recently, several researchers have shown that selective photocatalysis can be approached by modifying the surface of the photocatalysts with specific molecules [16,[21][22][23]. Therefore, a shell with molecular selectivity around TiO2, which combines the merits of the high photocatalytic activity of TiO2 and the photocatalytic selectivity of the surface modifiers, would be used as a highly selective photocatalyst.…”

Plasmon Mediated Photocatalysis by Solar Active Ag/ZnO Nanostructures: Degradation of Organic Pollutants in Aqueous Conditions

“…The current mechanism can be considered as similar to that has been reported by other researchers [42] where they have reported that due to localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) process, Ag particles act like an antenna for trapping sunlight radiation. LSPR acts as a locally excited electric field and the electrons in the valence band of excited silver nanoparticles (Ag* in reaction 6) get transferred to the conduction band of ZnO and showing formation of ZnO(e) [5]. Thereafter, ZnO in Ag/ZnO will transfer the charge to Ag NPs, thus increasing the rate of separation of photogenerated electron hole pairs.…”