Photoelectrocatalytic oxidation of ethylene glycol on trimetallic PdAgCu nanospheres enhanced by surface plasmon resonance

Kewang Zhang; Cheng Wang; Siyu Guo; Shujin Li; Zhengying Wu; Shinichi Hata; Jie Li; Yukihide Shiraishi; Yukou Du

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.01.055

Photoelectrocatalytic oxidation of ethylene glycol on trimetallic PdAgCu nanospheres enhanced by surface plasmon resonance

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Apr 15:636:559-567. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.01.055. Epub 2023 Jan 13.

Authors

Kewang Zhang¹, Cheng Wang¹, Siyu Guo², Shujin Li¹, Zhengying Wu³, Shinichi Hata⁴, Jie Li¹, Yukihide Shiraishi⁴, Yukou Du⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China.
² College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China. Electronic address: syguo@suda.edu.cn.
³ Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Environment Functional Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou 215009, China. Electronic address: zywu@mail.usts.edu.cn.
⁴ Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering, Sanyo-Onoda City University, Sanyo-Onoda, Yamaguchi 756-0884, Japan.
⁵ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China; School of Optical and Electronic Information, Suzhou City University, Suzhou 215104, China. Electronic address: duyk@suda.edu.cn.

PMID: 36669449
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.01.055

Abstract

The notable surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of some metals has been applied to improve the efficiency of alcohol oxidation reactions, whereas the comprehensive investigation of Cu-assisted photoelectrocatalysis remains challenging. We herein successfully prepared trimetallic PdAgCu nanospheres (NSs) with abundant surface bulges for the advanced ethylene glycol oxidation reaction (EGOR) and compared them with bimetallic PdAg NSs to investigate the performance enhancement mechanism. Impressively, the as-optimized PdAgCu NSs exhibited superb mass activity and electrochemical stability. Moreover, under visible light illumination, the mass activity of PdAgCu NSs increased to 1.62 times compared to that in the dark, and in contrast, the mass activity of PdAg NSs only increased to 1.48 times that in the dark. A mechanistic study indicated that the incorporation of Cu not only strengthens the whole SPR effect of PdAgCu NSs but also further modifies the electronic structure of Pd. This work highlighted that the incorporation of Cu into PdAg NSs further enhanced the photoelectrocatalytic performance and increased noble metal atom utilization, which may provide guidance to fabricate novel and promising nanocatalysts in the field of photoelectrocatalysis.

Keywords: Ethylene glycol photoelectrocatalysis; Surface bulges; Surface plasmon resonance; Trimetallic PdAgCu nanospheres; Visible light.