Facet Engineering of Pd Nanocrystals for Enhancing Photocatalytic Hydrogenation: Modulation of the Schottky Barrier Height and Enrichment of Surface Reactants

作者：Suwei Lu, Bo Weng, Aizhu Chen, Xinwei Li, Haowei Huang, Xiaoming Sun, Wenhui Feng, Yanhua Lei, Qingrong Qian, Min‐Quan Yang · 发表于：ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1021/acsami.0c19260 · 被引用次数：82 · 研究领域：Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques、Copper-based nanomaterials and applications、Nanomaterials for catalytic reactions

Metal cocatalyst loading is one of the most widely explored strategies in promoting photocatalytic solar energy conversion. Engineering surface-active facets of metal cocatalyst and exploring how they modulate the reactivity is crucial for the further development of advanced photocatalysts. In this work, through controlled hybridization of two-dimensional (2D) TiO 2 nanosheets with well-designed Pd nanocube (Pd NC) with exposed {100} facet and Pd nano-octahedron (NO) with exposed {111} facet, we unravel the distinct crystal facet effect of Pd cocatalyst in promoting the selective hydrogenation of nitroarenes to amines of TiO 2 photocatalyst. The activity tests show that the Pd NO with {111} facet is a more efficient cocatalyst than the Pd NC with exposed {100} facet. The prepared TiO 2 -Pd NO composite displays a 900% enhancement of photocatalytic hydrogenation rate in comparison with bare TiO 2, while the TiO 2 -Pd NC sample only shows a 200% photoactivity enhancement. Microscopic mechanism study discloses that the distinctive photoactivity improvement of Pd NO is ascribed to the concurrent modulation of the Schottky barrier height and enrichment of surface reactants: (i) the Pd NO with a lower Fermi level could result in steeper band bending of TiO 2 (i.e., higher Schottky barrier) than the Pd NC, which is more efficient in boosting interfacial separation and inhibiting the recombination of photoexcited charge pairs; and (ii) the {111} facet of Pd has higher nitroarenes ads...