1. Nanogap Engineered Plasmon-Enhancement in Photocatalytic Solar Hydrogen Conversion.
- Author
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Chen, Jie, Dong, Chung-Li, Du, Yuanchang, Zhao, Daming, and Shen, Shaohua
- Subjects
HYDROGEN-deuterium exchange ,REFRIGERANTS ,NONMETALS ,HYDROGEN ,SOLAR energy - Abstract
Graphitic carbon nitride modified with plasmonic Ag@SiO
2 core-shell nanoparticles (g-C3 N4 /Ag@SiO2 ) are proposed for enhanced photocatalytic solar hydrogen evolution under visible light. Nanosized gaps between the plasmonic Ag nanoparticles (NPs) and g-C3 N4 are created and precisely modulated to be 8, 12, 17, and 21 nm by coating SiO2 shells on the Ag NPs. The optimized photocatalytic hydrogen production activity for g-C3 N4 /Ag@SiO2 is achieved with a nanogap of 12 nm (11.4 μmol h−1 ) to be more than twice as high as that of pure g-C3 N4 (5.6 μmol h−1 ). The plasmon resonance energy transfer (PRET) effect of Ag NPs is innovatively proved from a physical view on polymer semiconductors for photoredox catalysis. The PRET effect favors the charge carrier separation by inducing electron-hole pairs efficiently formed in the near-surface region of g-C3 N4 . Furthermore, via engineering the width of the nanogap, the PRET and energy-loss Förster resonance energy transfer processes are perfectly balanced, resulting in considerable enhancement of photocatalytic hydrogen production activity over the g-C3 N4 /Ag@SiO2 plasmonic photocatalyst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2015
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