Plasmon-Induced Electrocatalysis with Multi-Component Nanostructures

Noble metal nanostructures are exceptional light absorbing systems, in which electron⁻hole pairs can be formed and used as "hot" charge carriers for catalytic applications. The main goal of the emerging field of plasmon-induced catalysis is to design a novel way of finely tuning the activity and selectivity of heterogeneous catalysts. The designed strategies for the preparation of plasmonic nanomaterials for catalytic systems are highly crucial to achieve improvement in the performance of targeted catalytic reactions and processes. While there is a growing number of composite materials for photochemical processes-mediated by hot charge carriers, the reports on plasmon-enhanced electrochemical catalysis and their investigated reactions are still scarce. This review provides a brief overview of the current understanding of the charge flow within plasmon-enhanced electrochemically active nanostructures and their synthetic methods. It is intended to shed light on the recent progress achieved in the synthesis of multi-component nanostructures, in particular for the plasmon-mediated electrocatalysis of major fuel-forming and fuel cell reactions.