Surface Plasmon-Driven Water Reduction: Gold Nanoparticle Size Matters

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• 作者：Kun Qian ; Brendan C. Sweeny ; Aaron C. Johnston-Peck ; Wenxin Niu ; Jeremy O. Graham ; Joseph S. DuChene ; Jingjing Qiu ; Yi-Chung Wang ; Mark H. Engelhard ; Dong Su ; Eric A. Stach ; Wei David Wei
• 刊名：Journal of the American Chemical Society
• 出版年：2014
• 出版时间：July 16, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：136
• 期：28
• 页码：9842-9845
• 全文大小：267K
• ISSN：1520-5126

文摘

Water reduction under two different visible-light ranges (位 > 400 nm and 位 > 435 nm) was investigated in gold-loaded titanium dioxide (Au-TiO₂) heterostructures with different sizes of Au nanoparticles (NPs). Our study clearly demonstrates the essential role played by Au NP size in plasmon-driven H₂O reduction and reveals two distinct mechanisms to clarify visible-light photocatalytic activity under different excitation conditions. The size of the Au NP governs the efficiency of plasmon-mediated electron transfer and plays a critical role in determining the reduction potentials of the electrons transferred to the TiO₂ conduction band. Our discovery provides a facile method of manipulating photocatalytic activity simply by varying the Au NP size and is expected to greatly facilitate the design of suitable plasmonic photocatalysts for solar-to-fuel energy conversion.