Photoelectrochemical water oxidation with plasmonic Au@MnOx core-shell nanoparticles

Abstract

Development of robust and efficient photocatalytic constructs to facilitate the water oxidation reaction (WOR) remains essential for various renewable energy technologies. Here we report on developing Au@MnOx core-shell nanoparticles that perform the electrochemical WOR at a low onset overpotential requirement of approximately 230 mV. Under visible light excitation, the WOR activity of the Au@MnOx catalytic construct showed further improvement with the decrease of the overpotential requirement and generation of a photocurrent of 128 ?A/cm2 at 1 V applied potential. The incident photon to photocurrent conversion efficiency (IPCE) was found to be 0.1%. The Au@MnOx core-shell nanoparticles were also found to be stable under prolonged photoexcitation up to 2000 s.