Facile synthesis of Au/Pd nano-dogbones and their plasmon-enhanced visible-to-NIR light photocatalytic performance

Here, we report a facile synthesis of Pd/Au nano-dogbones (NDBs) by loading massive Pd nanoparticles on the two ends of Au nanorods (NRs) via a seed-mediated method. The as-prepared samples were investigated by using TEM, elemental analysis, UV-vis and FDTD simulation. The photocatalytic activity of Pd/Au NDBs was assessed by dehydrogenation of formic acid under visible-to-NIR light irradiation. The Pd/Au NDBs shows much higher enhanced reaction activity compared with samples with core-shell structure due to the increased electron and hole pair separation and total catalytic sites. More importantly, the introduction of Au NRs broadens the photoresponse range and improves the utilization of sunlight efficiently. This finding provides a rational approach to improve photocatalytic performance by forming dogbone structures via integrating plasmonic metals and conventional catalysts.