Plasmonic Metal/Semiconductor Heterostructure for Visible Light-Enhanced H2 Production

Shomaila Khanam; Sanjeeb Kumar Rout

doi:10.1021/acsomega.2c02459

Plasmonic Metal/Semiconductor Heterostructure for Visible Light-Enhanced H₂ Production

ACS Omega. 2022 Jul 14;7(29):25466-25475. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.2c02459. eCollection 2022 Jul 26.

Authors

Shomaila Khanam¹, Sanjeeb Kumar Rout¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Physics, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, Jharkhand 835215, India.

Abstract

A plasmonic Ag/Bi₂WO₆ heterostructure, having Ag NPs deposited on Bi₂WO₆, is obtained by a hydrothermal and photodeposition method. The synthesized Ag/Bi₂WO₆ composite exhibits strong visible light absorption with a localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) and shows an enhanced photoabsorption property. It is demonstrated that such a Ag/Bi₂WO₆ heterostructure shows excellent plasmon-enhanced photocatalytic activity in the dehydrogenation of ammonia borane (NH₃BH₃) solution under visible light irradiation, which is due to the results from the synergetic effect between Ag NPs and emerging W⁵⁺ ions. More importantly, the performance of a Ag/Bi₂WO₆ hybrid is almost eight times higher than that of sole Bi₂WO₆ nanosheets. The introduction of LSPR of Ag in Bi₂WO₆ improves the electrical conductivity of the composite and lowers the recombination rate of charge carriers. This study opens up the opportunity of rationally fabricating plasmonic metal/semiconductor heterostructures for highly efficient photocatalysis.