title: Near-Infrared Plasmonic-Enhanced Solar Energy Harvest for Highly Efficient Photocatalytic Reactions.
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/cm(2)), these heteronanostructures demonstrated excellent catalytic activities. Under solar illumination with power density as low as 40 mW/cm(2), 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.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology , Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jiabin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California Los Angeles , Los Angeles, California 90095 United States.
authors.forename: Yongjia
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Semiconductor Lighting Technology Research and Development Center, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100083, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology , Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology , Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology , Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jingwen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology , Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California Los Angeles , Los Angeles, California 90095 United States.
authors.forename: Enbo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California Los Angeles , Los Angeles, California 90095 United States.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Semiconductor Lighting Technology Research and Development Center, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100083, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lixia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology , Beijing 100029, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Leyu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California Los Angeles , Los Angeles, California 90095 United States.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Huang
keywords: Heteronanostructures; copper sulfide; localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPR); solar photocatalysis