Recent advancements in plasmon-enhanced visible light-driven water splitting

Abstract

Recently, the combination of plasmonic noble metallic nanostructures with semiconductors for plasmon-enhanced visible light-driven water splitting (WS) has attracted considerable attention. This review first presents three prime enhancement mechanisms for plasmon-enhanced photocatalytic WS, and then some state-of-the-art representative studies are introduced according to different enhancement mechanisms. Furthermore, the design parameters of plasmonic-metal/semiconductor photocatalysts are discussed in detail, focusing on the effect of shape, size and geometric position of metallic nanostructures on the photocatalytic activity of visible light-driven WS. Finally, the challenges and perspectives for plasmon-enhanced solar WS are proposed.