Hollow nanocatalysts such as palladium nanoshells have high catalytic efficiency. Gold nanospheres, which generate photothermal heat when photo-excited, are synthesized inside the palladium nanoshells to form the gold-palladium nanorattles (PdAuNRTs). Upon optical excitation of the gold nanospheres while using the PdAuNRTs in the catalysis of the reduction of 4-nitrophenol by borohydride as a model reaction, the efficiency of the catalytic process was enhanced by amounts that are sensitive to the relative size of gold nanosphere to that of the hollow palladium nanocage. ​Since measuring the temperature inside the cavity is not possible, the value of activation energy determined for this reaction was used to estimate the increase in the temperature resulting from the plasmon excitation which suggested to be ~ 20 <sup>o</sup>C.

Enhancing catalytic efficiency of hollow palladium nanoparticles by photothermal heating of added gold nanoparticles to their cavity: palladium-gold nanorattles

249th National Meeting (2015)

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