Influence of TiO₂electronic structure and strong metal–support interaction on plasmonic Au photocatalytic oxidations

Abstract

Photocatalytic oxidations promoted by hot electron transfer and PRET strongly depend on Au loading and SMSI.

Solar-Powered Plasmon-Enhanced Heterogeneous Catalysis

“…Hot electron transfer occurred preferentially when Au was deposited on stoichiometric TiO 2 ( Figure 5A). By contrast, Au/TiO 2 with intragap defect states was shown to drive the formic acid photodegradation via both hot electron transfer and PIRET [37,50,58,103]. From finite element method simulations, Au NPs coupling was shown to be progressively more efficient as the distance between plasmonic carriers was reduced.…”

“…In addition, when Au was embedded in doped TiO 2 , the electric field propagated below the semiconductor surface ensuring an extended region where charge carriers could be generated and thus produced a 120% photocatalytic enhancement. Parallel investigations proved that the generation and injection efficiency of plasmonic carriers could be further enhanced by tailoring specific morphological parameters (e.g., size and shape of metal nanostructures, distance between the semiconductor and the metal) [43,103,[105][106][107]. For instance, Awazu et al investigated Ag-SiO 2 /TiO 2 heterostructures, consisting of Ag NPs covered with a SiO 2 shell (acting as electronic insulator) and deposited on the surface of a TiO 2 film.…”

“…Indeed, besides serving as a plasmonic carrier collector, the semiconductor has intrinsic physico-chemical surface properties (e.g., acidbase character, hydration extent) that influence both the selectivity and final reaction yield. In addition, important parameters usually considered in traditional catalysis such as metal loading and strong metal-support interaction ( Figure 5A) can be conveniently exploited to increase plasmonic field enhancement [103,104].…”

TiO2 Nanotubes on Transparent Substrates: Control of Film Microstructure and Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Performance

“…Nanocrystalline TiO 2 has highly promising optical, photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical (PEC) performance [4], which have been extensively used for a broad range of applications including environmental purification, organic oxidations [5], solar cells, PEC water splitting, and hydrogen peroxide production [1,2,4,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12].…”

In Situ Gold‐Loaded Fluorinated Titania Inverse Opal Photocatalysts for Enhanced Solar‐Light‐Driven Hydrogen Production

“…The localized surface plasmons can decay either through a radiative decay process or through non radiative decay via the excitation of hot electrons . This may happen through intraband excitation within the conduction band or interband transitions . These hot electrons, which are present above the Fermi level, can be injected into the titania by overcoming the Schottky barrier and improve the charge separation of Au‐TiO 2 .…”