Abstract
Metal-enhanced photocatalysis has recently received increasing interest, mainly due to the ability of metal to directly or indirectly degrade pollutants. In this review, we briefly review the recent breakthroughs in metal-enhanced photocatalysis. We discussed the recent progress of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect and small size effect of metal nanoparticles on photocatalysis; in particular, we focus on elucidating the mechanism of energy transfer and hot electron injection/transfer effect of metal nanoparticles and clusters while as photocatalysts or as cophotocatalysts. Finally, we discuss the potential applications of metal-enhanced photocatalysis, and we also offer some perspectives for further investigations.
Highlights
Along with the accelerated development of human society, increasing energy concerns and environmental deterioration have become the most serious problems facing human beings [1,2,3]
The doping effect has been reviewed well, and due to the space limitation, in this review, we mainly focus on reviewing the recent progress on the metal-enhanced photocatalysis by zero-valent metal particles, especially on the transfer mechanism of electrons or holes, between the materials and the target molecules
For large metal nanoparticles, due to the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect, energy can be transferred to semiconductors either by energy resonance or by hot electron injection
Summary
Along with the accelerated development of human society, increasing energy concerns and environmental deterioration have become the most serious problems facing human beings [1,2,3]. According to the different enhancement mechanisms of metals on the semiconductor photocatalysts, three metal forms could usually be considered: doping ions, nanoclusters, and plasmonic nanoparticles. The doping effect has been reviewed well, and due to the space limitation, in this review, we mainly focus on reviewing the recent progress on the metal-enhanced photocatalysis by zero-valent metal particles, especially on the transfer mechanism of electrons or holes, between the materials and the target molecules. The electrons oscillate together under the interactions at a certain resonant frequency, which is named surface plasmon resonance (SPR) [12] This energy could be transferred to the neighboring material, which can further greatly improve the Raman signals, fluorescence, photocatalysis, single-molecule spectroscopy properties, etc., and foster many new powerful analytical methods and applications. The metal nanoclusters could transfer the ions with high energy to the recent hybridizer like a semiconductor, which could greatly enhance photocatalysis
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