Photocatalytic nanomaterials display promising results at the laboratory scale for applications in environmental remediation, as well as in the generation of fuels and organics. The performance of the photocatalysts seems to be highly correlated to the structural and morphological features of the individual particles.1,2 Recently, we have reported on the photodeposition of silver nanostructures at the surface of ZnO crystals.3 These nanosized silver structures act as an efficient electron sink, rendering the dendrites into potential co-catalysts. The photodeposition of these silver co-catalysts is clearly limited to certain locations on the ZnO crystals. The Ag photodeposition on single ZnO photocatalysts was studied in detailed using an integrated optical - electron microscope. Under UV stimulation, the Ag nanoparticle photodeposition on ZnO was visualized in detail.4,5 Silver photodeposition experiments on ZnO particles have revealed that different crystallographic features show different activities. In case of ZnO dumbbells, 45% of the silver deposition sites are located on crystal edges and 50% appear on defects at the crystal side faces. In contrast, the same experiments with ZnO microrods displaying less surface defects, pointed out that the polar faces contribute the most to the photocatalytic activity.5 These different relationships have been inffered indirectly from bulk measurements. The integrated approach is clearly advantageous to study the structure-activity relationship in photocatalyst particles since indirect measurements could lead to a misinterpretation.

Understanding photocatalytic activity at the nanoscale using correlated electron and fluorescence microscopy

254th National Meeting (2017)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.