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The effect localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of Au nanoparticles was studied on the photocatalytic activity of TiO 2 film. We used the thermal hydrolysis method to prepare 300 nm TiO 2 film and the sodium citrate reduced method to synthesize gold nanoparticles. The photocatalytic activities of Au/TiO 2, Au@SiO 2 /TiO 2, and TiO 2 films were evaluated by the degree of MB photodegradation under similar conditions with simultaneous UV (365 nm) and visible-light (400 nm Au/TiO 2 > TiO 2 . Although the SiO 2 shell prevented the electron trap effect, the MB photodegradation efficiency of Au@SiO 2 /TiO 2 was superior to that of Au/TiO 2 because its LSPR was much higher. To validate the experimental results, the electric field intensity around the gold nanoparticles was simulated by the finite element method (FEM). In the presence of gold nanoparticles, the LSPR effect increased the surrounding intensity of electric field that enhanced the photocatalytic activities. Furthermore, from the simulation results, Au@SiO 2 /TiO 2 showed EM field improvement of nearly 9 times compared with Au/TiO 2 . The SiO 2 coating significantly increased the LSPR effect of gold nanoparticles. We named this new core–shell structure “shell-isolated plasmonic photocatalyst”.
Chen et al. (Mon,) studied this question.