Near-Infrared Plasmonic-Enhanced Solar Energy Harvest for Highly Efficient Photocatalytic Reactions

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Abstract
We report a highly efficient photocatalyst comprised of Cu7S4@Pd heteronanostructures with plasmonic absorption in the near-infrared (NIR)-range. Our results indicated that the strong NIR plasmonic absorption of Cu7S4@Pd facilitated hot carrier transfer from Cu7S4 to Pd, which subsequently promoted the catalytic reactions on Pd metallic surface. We confirmed such enhancement mechanism could effectively boost the sunlight utilization in a wide range of photocatalytic reactions, including the Suzuki coupling reaction, hydrogenation of nitrobenzene, and oxidation of benzyl alcohol. Even under irradiation at 1500 nm with low power density (0.45 W/cm2), these heteronanostructures demonstrated excellent catalytic activities. Under solar illumination with power density as low as 40 mW/cm2, nearly 80–100% of conversion was achieved within 2 h for all three types of organic reactions. Furthermore, recycling experiments showed the Cu7S4@Pd were stable and could retain their structures and high activity after five cycles. The reported synthetic protocol can be easily extended to other Cu7S4@M (M = Pt, Ag, Au) catalysts, offering a new solution to design and fabricate highly effective photocatalysts with broad material choices for efficient conversion of solar energy to chemical energy in an environmentally friendly manner.
Funding Information
  • Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (2011CB932403)
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (21275015, 21475007)
  • Army Research Office (54709-MS-PCS)

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