Ultrafine metal nanoparticles with sizes less than 10 nm are widely used as catalysts in many important reactions.  In the conventional thermal catalysis setup, the small metal nanoparticles usually experience agglomeration and sintering at elevated temperatures, consequently lowering their catalytic activity.  On the other hand, photocatalysis relies on the absorption of photoenergy in the catalyst nanoparticles to activate specific chemical bonds and thus trigger the desirable chemical reactions with appropriate selectivity, alleviating the problems in thermal catalysis while achieving appropriate activity.  However, ultrafine metal nanoparticles exhibit weak light absorption power, limiting their capability to harvest photoenergy efficiently.  In this presentation, the ultrafine nanoparticles made of platinum group metals supported on spherical silica nanoparticles, which serve as dielectric light antennae to enhance light absorption in the metal nanoparticles, are shown as a new class of photocatalysts for selectively driving chemical reactions.  Typical examples include the selective oxidation of primary alcohols to aldehydes and the selective reductive hydrogenation of nitrobenzene.

Amplifying optical absorption of ultrafine metal nanoparticles

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