In this paper, we aimed at investigating the effect of the presence of small TiO2 crystallites over the transfer of hot electrons from Au nanoparticles (NPs) mediated by the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) excitation and its subsequent photocatalytic activities. To this end, we employed TiO2 colloidal spheres composed of TiO2 crystallites of 8.5 nm in size decorated with Au NPs (TiO2–Au) of 17 nm in size over the TiO2 surface as model materials. Moreover, the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) under visible light excitation was employed as a target plasmonic transformation. We found that the plasmonic photocatalytic activity was significantly higher for the TiO2–Au hybrid relative to its individual Au NPs or TiO2 counterparts under excitation at 633 nm. These results could be explained based on the transfer of hot electrons generated upon the SPR excitation from Au NPs to the TiO2 conduction band in the TiO2–Au material, which will be recombined on the surface of TiO2 crystallites or at the interface between TiO2 crystallites, decreasing electrons density in Au NPs that lead to the formation of hydroxyl radicals that contribute and improve the photocatalytic degradation of MB. This mechanism was supported by the fact that the presence of TiO2 leads to a decrease in the p-aminothiophenol to p,p′-dimercaptoazobenzene SPR-mediated oxidation in the TiO2–Au relative to Au NPs. We believe that the results reported herein suggest that TiO2–Au materials may represent attractive systems for designing plasmonic photocatalysts with improved performances towards a variety of transformations using solar/visible light as the energy input.
本文旨在研究小 TiO2 晶体的存在对由表面等离子体共振 (
SPR) 激发的
金纳米粒子 (NPs) 热电子转移及其后续光催化活性的影响。为此,我们采用了由尺寸为 8.5 nm 的 TiO2 晶体和尺寸为 17 nm 的
金纳米粒子(TiO2-Au)组成的 TiO2 胶体球作为模型材料。此外,我们还将可见光激发下
亚甲基蓝(MB)的光催化降解作为等离子体转化的目标。我们发现,在 633 纳米波长的激发下,TiO2-Au 杂化物的等离子光催化活性明显高于其单个 Au NPs 或对应的 TiO2。这些结果可以解释为在
SPR 激发下,Au NPs 中产生的热电子转移到了 TiO2-Au 材料中的 TiO2 传导带,这些电子将在 TiO2 晶体表面或 TiO2 晶体之间的界面上重新结合,降低 Au NPs 中的电子密度,从而形成羟基自由基,促进和改善甲基
溴的光催化降解。相对于 Au NPs,TiO2-Au 的存在导致对
氨基
苯硫酚到 p,p′-二巯基
偶氮苯 SPR 介导的氧化作用降低,这一事实证明了上述机制。我们认为,本文报告的结果表明,TiO2-Au 材料可能是设计等离子体光催化剂的有吸引力的系统,它能改善以太阳光/可见光为能量输入的各种转化的性能。