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Single-Particle Insights into Plasmonic Hot Carrier Separation Augmenting Photoelectrochemical Ethanol Oxidation with Photocatalytically Synthesized Pd-Au Bimetallic Nanorods

  • Gregory T. Forcherio
  • , Behnaz Ostovar
  • , Jonathan Boltersdorf
  • , Yi Yu Cai
  • , Asher C. Leff
  • , Kyle N. Grew
  • , Cynthia A. Lundgren
  • , Stephan Link
  • , David R. Baker

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Understanding the nature of hot carrier pathways following surface plasmon excitation of heterometallic nanostructures and their mechanistic prevalence during photoelectrochemical oxidation of complex hydrocarbons, such as ethanol, remains challenging. This work studies the fate of carriers from Au nanorods before and after the presence of reductively photodeposited Pd at the single-particle level using scattering and emission spectroscopy, along with ensemble photoelectrochemical methods. A sub-2 nm epitaxial Pd0shell was reductively grown onto colloidal Au nanorods via hot carriers generated from surface plasmon resonance excitation in the presence of [PdCl4]2-. These bimetallic Pd-Au nanorod architectures exhibited 14% quenched emission quantum yields and 9% augmented plasmon damping determined from their scattering spectra compared to the bare Au nanorods, consistent with injection/separation of intraband hot carriers into the Pd. Absorbed photon-to-current efficiency in photoelectrochemical ethanol oxidation was enhanced 50× from 0.00034% to 0.017% due to the photodeposited Pd. Photocurrent during ethanol oxidation improved 13× under solar-simulated AM1.5G and 40× for surface plasmon resonance-targeted irradiation conditions after photodepositing Pd, consistent with enhanced participation of intraband-excited sp-band holes and desorption of ethanol oxidation reaction intermediates owing to photothermal effects.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)12377-12389
Number of pages13
JournalACS Nano
Volume16
Issue number8
Early online dateJul 27 2022
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 23 2022
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • nanocatalysts
  • photoelectrochemistry
  • photoluminescence spectroscopy
  • single-particle spectroscopy
  • surface plasmon resonance

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science
  • General Engineering
  • General Physics and Astronomy

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