Effect of crystal facets in plasmonic catalysis

Yicui Kang, Simão M. João, Rui Lin (), Kang Liu, Li Zhu, Junwei Fu, Weng-Chon (Max) Cheong, Seunghoon Lee, Kilian Frank, Bert Nickel, Min Liu, Johannes Lischner () and Emiliano Cortés ()
Additional contact information
Yicui Kang: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Simão M. João: Imperial College London
Rui Lin: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Kang Liu: Central South University
Li Zhu: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Junwei Fu: Central South University
Weng-Chon (Max) Cheong: University of Science and Technology
Seunghoon Lee: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Kilian Frank: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
Bert Nickel: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
Min Liu: Central South University
Johannes Lischner: Imperial College London
Emiliano Cortés: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract While the role of crystal facets is well known in traditional heterogeneous catalysis, this effect has not yet been thoroughly studied in plasmon-assisted catalysis, where attention has primarily focused on plasmon-derived mechanisms. Here, we investigate plasmon-assisted electrocatalytic CO2 reduction using different shapes of plasmonic Au nanoparticles - nanocube (NC), rhombic dodecahedron (RD), and octahedron (OC) - exposing {100}, {110}, and {111} facets, respectively. Upon plasmon excitation, Au OCs doubled CO Faradaic efficiency (FECO) and tripled CO partial current density (jCO) compared to a dark condition, with NCs also improving under illumination. In contrast, Au RDs maintained consistent performance irrespective of light exposure, suggesting minimal influence of light on the reaction. Temperature experiments ruled out heat as the main factor to explain such differences. Atomistic simulations and electromagnetic modeling revealed higher hot carrier abundance and electric field enhancement on Au OCs and NCs than RDs. These effects now dominate the reaction landscape over the crystal facets, thus shifting the reaction sites when comparing dark and plasmon-activated processes. Plasmon-assisted H2 evolution reaction experiments also support these findings. The dominance of low-coordinated sites over facets in plasmonic catalysis suggests key insights for designing efficient photocatalysts for energy conversion and carbon neutralization.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47994-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-47994-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47994-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().