Multicomponent alloyed plasmonic photocatalysis
AssigneeThe Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
InventorsJennifer A. Dionne, Alan Dai, Briley Bourgeois, Daniel K. Angell, Dayne F. Swearer, Lin Yuan
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Abstract
Improved photocatalysis is provided for chemical reactions involving hydrogen in two component plasmon-catalyst nanoparticles. The main idea of this work is to configure the optical illumination of the nano-articles to suppress formation of an undesirable hydride phase in the nanoparticles. This idea is broadly applicable to any chemical reaction involving hydrogen. Specific examples considered experimentally in this work are acetylene hydrogenation to produce ethylene, carbon dioxide reduction and ammonia synthesis.
Claims9
A method of catalyzing a chemical reaction, the method comprising:
- illuminating catalyst particles with optical radiation;
- and
- providing chemical reactants to the catalyst particles, wherein the chemical reactants include hydrogen;
- wherein the catalyst particles have a composition including a plasmonic constituent and a catalytic constituent;
- wherein the optical radiation is configured to suppress formation of a hydride phase in the catalyst particles, whereby selectivity of the catalyst particles for the chemical reaction is improved.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.