Promoting Active Species Generation by Plasmon-Induced Hot-Electron Excitation for Efficient Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution

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• 作者：Guigao Liu ; Peng Li ; Guixia Zhao ; Xin Wang ; Jintao Kong ; Huimin Liu ; Huabin Zhang ; Kun Chang ; Xianguang Meng ; Tetsuya Kako ; Jinhua Ye
• 刊名：Journal of the American Chemical Society
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：July 27, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：138
• 期：29
• 页码：9128-9136
• 全文大小：690K
• 年卷期：0
• ISSN：1520-5126

文摘

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.