Plasmon-induced broad spectrum photocatalytic overall water splitting: Through non-noble bimetal nanoparticles hybrid with reduced graphene oxide

Semiconductor-based photocatalysts have a narrow absorption range of sunlight and low light utilization efficiency, due to the limitation of band gap of semiconductor materials. Using pure metal as plasmonic photo catalyst, completely different from traditional semiconductor photocatalyst system. The resonance effect between the free electrons and photons on the metal surface runs through the whole light region. Herein, our study provides a non-noble plasmonic Cu6Sn5 bimetal nanoparticles-reduced graphene oxide (rGO) composite with broad spectrum absorption to obtain excellent performance for photocatalytic overall water splitting. The proposed design is able to efficiently produce the electron-hole pair by plasmonic Cu6Sn5 bimetal, further injected in the rGO. The Cu6Sn5 and rGO structure provides photocatalytic sites, which is saturated with charge efficiently initiate overall water splitting. Taken together, our studies provide an important insight in the field of non-noble and non-semiconductor plasmonic photocatalyst.

Automated summary

This study introduces a non-noble plasmonic photocatalyst composed of Cu6Sn5 bimetal nanoparticles and reduced graphene oxide (rGO), which exhibits broad spectrum absorption and excellent performance in photocatalytic water splitting. The proposed design efficiently generates electron-hole pairs through the plasmonic Cu6Sn5 bimetal and further injects them into rGO, resulting in efficient initiation of overall water splitting.