Surface plasmon resonance improved photocatalytic activity of Au/TiO₂ nanocomposite under visible light for degradation of pollutants

Abstract

The development of nonprecious and highly efficient photocatalyst by a green technique is highly desirable for environmental remediation. Herein, gold nanoparticles (Au Nps) have been successfully loading on the nanoparticle TiO 2 surface by a deposition-precipitation (DP) method. The optimized amount of 3Au/TiO 2 nanocomposite used for the degradation of toxic pollutant shows 36-time photoactivity improvement compared to the pure TiO 2 . According to the experimental results, the study confirmed that the prepared Au/TiO 2 nanocomposite material has excellent visible light photo-activity. This is due to the modification of Au surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and its catalytic function which leads to the expansion of visible light response, and the transfer of electrons from SPR-Au to TiO 2 enhances the charge separation nanocomposite. In addition, the as-prepared nanocomposite exhibits best stability; even after five cycles, no serious deactivation was observed. Besides, the main active species involved during photocatalytic degradation were confirmed through trapping experiment that super oxide radicals are the leading species for the 2,4-DCP degradation. It is expected that this work would provide a reasonable path to perceptibly improve the photocatalytic activity of TiO 2based photocatalyst for the environmental remediation.

Photocatalytic Degradation of Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics in Solution by Au@ZnO-rGO-gC3N4 Composites

“…However, alternatives such as doping these semiconductors with metallic nanoparticles and other additives deposited on the surface have made it possible to reduce bandgap and substantially promote electron-hole separation, avoiding rapid recombination processes [22]. The incorporation of Au nanoparticles on the surface of semiconductors enables the appearance of surface plasmon resonance (SPR), greatly improving the storage capacity and charge separation which increases the photocatalytic activity of the heterostructure [23,24]. Nevertheless, there are many other factors that decisively affect the photocatalytic behavior of the material, especially morphology, particle size, crystallinity and specific area, controlled during the synthesis procedure [25].…”

Photocatalytic Degradation of Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics in Solution

“…However, alternatives such as doping these semiconductors with metallic nanoparticles and other additives deposited on the surface have made it possible to reduce bandgap and substantially promote electron-hole separation, avoiding rapid recombination processes [22]. The incorporation of Au nanoparticles on the surface of semiconductors enables the appearance of surface plasmon resonance (SPR), greatly improving the storage capacity and charge separation, increasing the photocatalytic activity of the heterostructure [23,24]. However, there are many other factors that decisively affect the photocatalytic behavior of the material, especially morphology, particle size, crystallinity and specific area, controlled during the synthesis procedure [25].…”

Dissociation reactions of hydrogen molecules at active sites on gold clusters: A DFT study

“…[3,13,14] Although numerous experimental and theoretical studies focused on the gold catalytic reactions, it is still further to describe the relationship between surface microscopic structure and the reaction mechanism on GNPs. [5] Moreover, GNPs have strong surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect under visible light irradiation, [27][28][29][30][31][32] which can promote chemical reactions. [30][31][32][33][34] Mukherjee and co-workers reported the SPR-induced H 2 -D 2 exchange on GNPs with a diameter of around 10 nm deposited on TiO 2 and SiO 2 supports.…”

“…Moreover, GNPs have strong surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect under visible light irradiation, [ 27–32 ] which can promote chemical reactions. [ 30–34 ] Mukherjee and co‐workers reported the SPR‐induced H 2 ‐D 2 exchange on GNPs with a diameter of around 10 nm deposited on TiO 2 and SiO 2 supports.…”