Due to the well known surface plasmon resonance exhibited by gold, intense heat can be generated at the surface of gold nanoparticles when pulsed with 532 nm laser light. This heat dissipates extremely quickly, and therefore provides a way to supply heat to a solution in a very controlled manner, simply by changing the energy per pulse or the size of the nanoparticles. The localized heat gives us a new way to run chemical reactions that require moderate to high temperature, without bulk heating of the solution. Here we show how this plasmonic heating can be used to run various reactions without bulk heating of the solvent. This ultimately eliminates the need of high boiling solvents, as well as gives us the ability to run reactions previously impossible due to the temperature limitations of solvent.

Plasmonic heating: Using localized surface plasmon resonance to drive high temperature chemical processes

244th National Meeting (2012)

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