What is Plasmonic Photocatalysis and How Can It Help Remove Hydrogen Sulfide?

[Astronuc]

I listened to the following commentary: Getting Rid Of Hydrogen Sulfide
https://earthwiseradio.org/podcast/getting-rid-of-hydrogen-sulfide/

Researchers at Rice University have developed a method for turning hydrogen sulfide into hydrogen gas and sulfur in a single step. Called plasmonic photocatalysis, it not only gets rid of an undesirable substance, it does so by producing valuable byproducts.

The established way of getting rid of hydrogen sulfide is called the Claus process. It requires multiple steps, including some that require combustion chambers heated to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. The end product is sulfur and water.

The Rice University process gets all of its energy from light. A surface of grains of silicon dioxide is dotted with tiny gold nanoparticles. These particles interact strongly with a specific wavelength of visible light and cause plasmonic reactions that create short-lived, high-energy electrons that drive the catalysis of hydrogen sulfide.

Low temperature, low energy input, and two useful products!

Maybe there are other applications/processes.

Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) allows nanoparticles (NPs) to harvest light and concentrate it near the nanoparticle surface. Light energy is utilized in the generation of excited charge carriers as well as heat. Plasmonic catalysts used these energetic charge carriers (and the heat) to drive chemical reactions on their surface and allowed the discovery of novel and selective reaction pathways that were not possible in thermal catalysis. This review discusses the fundamentals of plasmonic catalysis and its application for CO2 conversion to fuel and chemicals. We first discussed the fundamentals of LSPR and the mechanism of plasmonic photocatalysis, using the concepts of the dielectric function, charge carrier generation, and relaxation pathways. We then reviewed various charge carrier-mediated activation of molecules (their chemical bonds) on the surface of plasmonic nanocatalysts and how the extraction of charge carriers played a critical role in plasmonic catalysis. The concept of multicomponent plasmonic catalysis, a hybrid catalyst by combining plasmonic metals (Cu, Au, Ag, Al, etc.) with nonplasmonic but active catalytic metals (Pt, Pd, Ru, Rh, etc.), in close proximity to each other, was then discussed. Photocatalytic CO2 reduction reactions using the examples of each of three major pathways, (i) direct transfer of hot charge carriers to the reactant molecules, (ii) providing heat to the reactant molecules by photothermal effect, and (iii) enhancing the photon absorption rate of reactant molecules by optical near-field enhancement close to the nanocatalyst surface, were discussed.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsmaterialslett.1c00081

 

[hutchphd]

Fire Bad. Surface Plasmons Good.
There are some really clever medical diagnostic products that use the change in the surface plasmon to look for stuff at surfaces.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_...AGBfm1h6gfEx-ltN_VRrnqkWX4UaPy-WA&oi=scholarr