Gold-Nanorod-Photosensitized Titanium Dioxide with Wide-Range Visible-Light Harvesting Based on Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance

摘要

In the quest to solve environmental remediation and solar energy conversion issues, photocatalysis using sunlight have been attracting tremendous attention. As a green chemistry technology, photocatalysis is an ambient temperature process that can completely decompose organic pollutants even at low levels. Since the discovery of its photocatalytic activity under UV light, TiO2 has become the most extensively studied semiconductor in applications such as environmental cleaning and hydrogen energy. Nevertheless, TiO2 possesses a wide band gap which limits its photo-absorption to only the UV region, accounting for about 4% of the total sunlight. From the perspective of both chemistry and practical applications, it is undoubtedly important to develop photo-catalytic materials that harvest a wide range of visible photons. Many strategies, including metal-ion and nonmetal doping, have been proposed to extend the absorption of TiO2 to visible spectrum. However, to date, the doped materials typically suffer from thermal instability, photo-corrosion, and fast e~-/h~+ recombination rates.