Three Dimensional Hybrids of Vertical Graphene-nanosheet Sandwiched by Ag-nanoparticles for Enhanced Surface Selectively Catalytic Reactions.

Jing Zhao,Zhe Liu,Mengtao Sun,Changzhi Gu,Baogang Quan,Junjie Li

doi:10.1038/srep16019

Abstract

Three dimensional (3D) plasmonic nanostructure is perfect for the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and also very suitable for surface catalytic reaction, but how to design and fabricate is still a robust task. Here, we show a 3D plasmonic nanohybrid of vertical graphene-nanosheet sandwiched by Ag-nanoparticles on the silicon nanocone array substrate for enhanced surface catalytic reaction. By SERS detection, we find that this hierarchical nanohybrid structure is highly efficient in the enhancement of catalytic reaction, even at a very low concentration of 10−11 M, which is far better than previous reports by four orders of magnitude. A strong electric field enhancement produced in the 3D framework nanohybrids of graphene nanosheet/Ag-nanoparticles is responsible for this great enhancement of catalytic reaction, due to larger electron collective oscillation in the composite system. Especially the oxygen adsorbed on the graphene and Ag nanoparticles can be excited to triplet excited states, and the electrons on the graphene and the nanoparticles can be effectively transferred to the oxygen, which plays very important role in molecular catalytic reactions. Our results demonstrate the contribution of graphene in plasmon-driven catalytic reactions, revealing a co-driven reaction process.This excellent SERS substrate can be used for future plasmon and graphene co-catalytic surface catalytic reactions, graphene-based surface plasmon sensors and so on.

Highlights

Noble metallic nanoparticle catalysts and their use in catalytic processes have recently been widely investigated experimentally and theoretically due to their advantages in nanoscience and nanotechnology
Image, which is silicone nanocone array that were fabricated by inductively coupled plasma etching, which is used as the substrate for growing vertical flower-like graphene nanosheets (FGNSs)
The FGNSs were uniformly grown on the silicon nanocone array by hot filament chemical vapor deposition using the mixture of H2 and CH4

Summary

Introduction

Noble metallic nanoparticle catalysts and their use in catalytic processes have recently been widely investigated experimentally and theoretically due to their advantages in nanoscience and nanotechnology. To demonstrate that this excellent SERS substrate is very suitable for graphene enhancing plasmon-driven catalytic reactions, PATP and 4NBT were separately oxidized and reduced to DMAB.

Results

Conclusion