Construction of a novel hybrid plasmonic metal-2D MXene catalyst for plasmon-driven photoreduction of nitroaromatics

Abstract

Plasmon-driven photocatalysis offers a green and promising strategy for solar-to-chemical energy conversion under mild reaction conditions. Herein, we developed an efficient strategy to significantly enhance the electromagnetic (EM) field in trimetallic Au@Ag@Pd NPs via engineering nanocavity as plasmonic hotspot. More importantly, a novel hybrid system of plasmonic metal-two-dimensional (2D) materials was constructed via loading of Au@Ag@Pd NPs with nanocavities onto the surface of 2D MXene (Ti3C2). The obtained Au@Ag@Pd/Ti3C2 photocatalyst showed superior catalytic performance on plasmon-driven hydrogenation of nitroaromatics even at 0 °C under visible light. Furthermore, it exhibited excellent stability and reusability in photocatalytic process. The EM field was dramatically enhanced via plasmonic component coupling and nanocavities engineered as plasmonic hotspot in the Au@Ag@Pd NPs, which can boost the generation of hot electrons. The presence of Pd and Ti3C2 facilitated the transfer of hot electrons from Au@Ag to Pd and then to MXene, which would prolong lifetimes of hot electrons and improve the utilization of hot electrons. Our present work paves a way to design more efficient hybrid plasmonic catalysts.