Gold Nanorod@TiO2 Yolk-shell Nanostructures for Visible-Light-Driven Photocatalytic Oxidation of Benzyl Alcohol

摘要

selective oxidation of alcohols to corresponding carbonyl compounds such as aldehydes and ketones is an essential process for the synthesis of various chemicals as intermediates for pharmaceutical and fragrance industries.[1] recently, photocatalytic oxidation has been widely explored to meet the request of green chemistry. Among different semicondutor photocatalysts, titanium dioxide (TiO2) is a benchmark catalyst for its effectiveness, nontoxicity, low cost, and chemical stability.[2] However, because of the large band gap, TiO2 shows high activity only in the UV region, which accounts for less than 5% of the total energy of the solar spectrum.[3] Thus, efforts have been devoted to synthesize TiO2-based photocatalysts responsive to visible light, during which the Sensitizing by plasmonic metals has been proved to be a promising method.