Surface plasmon assisted cuxo photocatalyst for pure water splitting

In this paper, CuxO photocatalyst on plasmonic nanoporous Au film is proposed to enhancing the H2 evolution rate of pure water splitting. The nanoporous Au film can simultaneously provide surface-enhanced absorption and built-in potential. The reflection spectrum shows that the surface plasmon (SP) assisted absorption wavelength of the Cu_xO on the nanoporous Au film can be modified by changing the annealing temperature. It is found that the enhancement of the H2 evolution rate highly depends on the SP-assisted absorption. As the annealing temperature is 220°C, the H2 evolution rate is 58μmolhr.1 under the condition that the device area is 0.25cm2.