Dawei's recent work on plasmonic photocatalysis has been published in Nano Letters. Congratulations! This paper has been selected as ESI Highly Cited Paper.

Title: Ligand-Exchange Assisted Formation of Au/TiO2 Schottky Contact for Visible-Light Photocatalysis

Authors: Ding, D.; Liu, K.; He, S.; Gao, C.*; Yin, Y.*

Link to Publisher: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl503585m 

Highlight by XJTU: http://news.xjtu.edu.cn/info/1033/44385.htm 

Abstract:  Conventional methods in constructing such hetero-catalysts suffer from either poor control over the size of the metal nanoparticles or inefficient charge transfer through the metal/semiconductor interface, which limit their photocatalytic activity. To solve this problem, in this work we construct Au/TiO2 photocatalysts by depositing pre-synthesized colloidal Au nanoparticles with well-controlled sizes to TiO2 nanocrystals and then removing capping ligands on the Au surface through a delicately designed ligand-exchange method, which leads to close Au/TiO2 Schottky contact after a mild annealing process. Benefiting from this unique synthesis strategy, t This study not only opens up new opportunities in designing photoactive materials with high stability and enhanced performance for solar energy conversion, but also provides a potential solution for the well-recognized challenge in cleaning capping ligands from the surface of colloidal catalyst nanoparticles.

中文简介：

纳米金和二氧化钛复合催化剂是近几年兴起的一类新型的可见光催化剂，在环境污染物的治理及光解水制氢等领域具有潜在的应用价值。该类催化剂一般是通过沉淀沉积的方法制备的，因此很难对纳米金的性质如形貌、尺寸等进行精准的控制，无法获得最优的光催化效果。近年来，胶体金制备工艺发展迅速，课题组在该领域也取得了一些成绩。目前，人们可以方便地制备出大批量的具有特定形貌和尺寸的胶体金纳米粒子。本工作成功地将该类胶体金纳米粒子应用到金二氧化钛复合光催化剂的制备上，并通过对纳米金性质的调控实现了对可见光催化活性的最优化。该合成路线的难点在于胶体金制备过程中一般需引入大量的封端剂，这些封端剂很容易滞留在纳米金和二氧化钛的界面上形成绝缘层，从而成为可见光催化过程中电子传输的最大障碍。为此本工作提出了一种新颖的配体交换的策略，有效地去除了胶体金表面上的封端剂，从而促进了纳米金跟二氧化钛之间强相互作用的形成，使之成为一类高效的可见光催化剂。另外，该策略还对多种贵金属纳米材料的表面清除具有明显的效果，进而有望解决这些材料在实际应用中由于封端剂的存在而产生的困扰。

该工作发表在纳米材料领域权威期刊Nano Letters（影响因子：13.592）上。该论文入选ESI高引论文。