Silver-Polyoxometalates Schottky Junction: Charge Manipulation and Photocatalysis

Solar-driven CO₂ reduction and thioanisole oxidation represent a promising solution to the climate issue. Herein, we constructed a silver-polyoxometalates Schottky junction (Ag@POMs) to realize high photoinduced charge separation using POM electron sponge and the plasma effect of silver nanoparticles. The plasmon-excited carriers generated in metal nanoparticles can transfer to adjacent semiconductor-like POM clusters to achieve highly efficient charge separation. Under visible light excitation, the separation efficiency of Ag@POMs is related to the POM types, and in the trend of {P₂W₁₇} > {SbW₉} > {PW₉}, the maximum yield of CO₂ to CO is 85.78 μmol·g^-1 with high selectivity of 95%, and the selectivity of thioanisole oxidation to sulfone can reach 94%. This work supplies a facile synthetic method to realize Ag@POM heterostructure to integrate electron sponge and plasma effect for constructing highly efficient photocatalytic materials.