Investigation of Plasmon-Mediated Oxygen Evolution Reaction

To achieve a carbon-neutral future, sustainable energy is needed through storing energy through its chemical bond. Water electrolysis, an exemplary form of electrocatalysis, presents an example of storing energy within chemical bonds of the high-energy hydrogen gas. Nevertheless, the anodic reaction involved in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) poses limitations on the overall rate of the process. Plasmonic gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) have been added to enhance the charge transfer at the interface of the OER electrocatalysts and electrolyte under light illumination. 1-3 However, the mechanistic understanding of how the Au NPs on the photo-assisted electrochemical process is still lacking. We applied a model system of plasmonic Au electrode with nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co)-based OER electrocatalyst to investigate the plasmon-mediated OER process. The composite system has been characterized with XPS, AFM, (photo)electrochemical and spectroscopic characterizations. Our preliminary data shows that the electrodeposited plasmonic Au electrode is free of surfactant and the resonant light illumination could modulate the electrochemical properties of the Au electrode and the Ni- and Co-based electrocatalysts in the alkaline electrolytes. Liu, G.; Li, P.; Zhao, G.; Wang, X.; Kong, J.; Liu, H.; Zhang, H.; Chang, K.; Meng, X.; Kako, T.; Ye, J. Promoting Active Species Generation by Plasmon-Induced Hot-Electron Excitation for Efficient Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016 , 138 (29), 9128–9136. Wang, M.; Wang, P.; Li, C.; Li, H.; Jin, Y. Boosting Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution Performance of Ultrathin Co/Ni-MOF Nanosheets via Plasmon-Induced Hot Carriers. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2018 , 10 (43), 37095–37102. Zeng, X.; Choi, S. M.; Bai, Y.; Jang, M. J.; Yu, R.; Cho, H.-S.; Kim, C.-H.; Myung, N. V.; Yin, Y. Plasmon-Enhanced Oxygen Evolution Catalyzed by Fe2N-Embedded TiO x N y ACS Appl. Energy Mater. 2020 , 3 (1), 146–151.