title: Promoting Active Species Generation by Plasmon-Induced Hot-Electron Excitation for Efficient Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution.
abstract: Water splitting represents a promising technology for renewable energy conversion and storage, but it is greatly hindered by the kinetically sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Here, using Au-nanoparticle-decorated Ni(OH)2 nanosheets [Ni(OH)2-Au] as catalysts, we demonstrate that the photon-induced surface plasmon resonance (SPR) excitation on Au nanoparticles could significantly activate the OER catalysis, specifically achieving a more than 4-fold enhanced activity and meanwhile affording a markedly decreased overpotential of 270 mV at the current density of 10 mA cm(-2) and a small Tafel slope of 35 mV dec(-1) (no iR-correction), which is much better than those of the benchmark IrO2 and RuO2, as well as most Ni-based OER catalysts reported to date. The synergy of the enhanced generation of Ni(III/IV) active species and the improved charge transfer, both induced by hot-electron excitation on Au nanoparticles, is proposed to account for such a markedly increased activity. The SPR-enhanced OER catalysis could also be observed over cobalt oxide (CoO)-Au and iron oxy-hydroxide (FeOOH)-Au catalysts, suggesting the generality of this strategy. These findings highlight the possibility of activating OER catalysis by plasmonic excitation and could open new avenues toward the design of more-energy-efficient catalytic water oxidation systems with the assistance of light energy.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Chemical Science and Engineering, Hokkaido University , Sapporo 060-8628, Japan.|International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Guigao
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Guixia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: TU-NIMS Joint Research Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University , Tianjin 300072, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin), Tianjin 300072, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials Chemistry and Physics, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Fuzhou 350002, China.
authors.forename: Jintao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.affiliation: International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Huimin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Huabin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Xianguang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.affiliation: International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Tetsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kako
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Chemical Science and Engineering, Hokkaido University , Sapporo 060-8628, Japan.|International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.|TU-NIMS Joint Research Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University , Tianjin 300072, China.|Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin), Tianjin 300072, China.
authors.forename: Jinhua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ye