We found that plasmonic Au particles on titanium(iv) oxide (TiO2) act as a visible-light-driven photocatalyst for overall water splitting free from any additives. This is the first report showing that surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in a suspension system effectively induces overall water splitting. Modification with various types of metal nanoparticles as co-catalysts enhanced the evolution of...

Trimetallic Au–Pd–Pt nanoparticles have been supported on activated carbon by the sol-immobilisation method. They are found to be highly active and selective catalysts for the solvent-free aerobic oxidation of benzyl alcohol. The addition of Pt promotes the selectivity to the desired product benzaldehyde at the expense of toluene formation. Detailed aberration corrected STEM-XEDS analysis confi...

To investigate the plasmonic effect in perovskite solar cells, the effect of depositing Au@SiO2 nanoparticles on the top and the bottom of mesoporous TiO2 layers was studied. First, Au@SiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized. The particles were then deposited at the different interfaces of mesoporous TiO2 layers. Although the two structures show approximately similar optical absorption, only cells ...

Density functional theory calculations were carried out to study the interaction of heroin molecule with pristine and N-dopedTiO2 anatase nanoparticles. The oxygen atom of heroin molecule was found to be the binding site on the heroin molecule. In contrast, the binding site of TiO2 nanoparticle was positioned over the fivefold coordinated titanium atoms. The results showed that the adsorption e...

We report a new capping-agent-free strategy for the synthesis of substrate-supported porous icosahedral Au nanoparticles (NPs) with rough naked surfaces, based on the crystallization from substrate-supported thin solution layers followed by solid-phase thermolysis. The plasmonic properties of icosahedral Au NPs have been studied using single particle dark-field scattering microscopy and spectro...

We demonstrate a tandem-structured, hot electron based photovoltaic cell with double Schottky barriers. The tandem-structured, hot electron based photovoltaic cell is composed of two metal/semiconductor interfaces. Two types of tandem cells were fabricated using TiO2/Au/Si and TiO2/Au/TiO2, and photocurrent enhancement was detected. The double Schottky barriers lead to an additional pathway for...

Abstract. Titania (TiO2) is one of the most unique catalysts, crucially important in photo-green chemistry. The mesoporous TiO2 has large surface area, uniform pore size and open frameworks for the transfer of mass and charges. TiO2 has photocatalytic activity which can degrade both organic and inorganic compounds. The band gap energy of TiO2 can be modified by doping various metal oxides to ma...

Au, Cu and bimetallic Au-Cu nanoparticles were synthesized on the surface of commercial TiO2 compounds (P25) by reduction of the metal precursors with tetrakis (hydroxymethyl) phosphonium chloride (THPC) (0.5 % in weight). The alloyed structure of Au-Cu NPs was confirmed by HAADF-STEM, EDS, HRTEM and XPS techniques. The photocatalytic properties of the modified TiO2 have been studied for phenol...

Characterizing nanoparticle dispersions and understanding the effect of parameters that alter dispersion properties are important for both environmental applications and toxicity investigations. The role of particle surface area, primary particle size, and crystal phase on TiO2 nanoparticle dispersion properties is reported. Hydrodynamic size, zeta potential, and isoelectric point (IEP) of ten ...

Herein, we describe a strategy for converting catalytically inactive, highly crystalline nanoparticle superlattices embedded in silica into catalytically active, porous structures through superlattice assembly and calcination. First, a body-centered cubic (bcc) superlattice is synthesized through the assembly of two sets of 5 nm gold nanoparticles chemically modified with DNA bearing complement...