Prof. Polshettiwar’s group at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai has developed a novel “plasmonic reduction catalyst stable in air,” defying the common instability of reduction catalysts in the presence of air. The catalyst merges platinum-doped ruthenium clusters, with “plasmonic black gold.” This black gold efficiently harvests visible light and generates numerous hot spots due to plasmonic coupling, enhancing its catalytic performance.
The team describes their work in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications.
What sets this catalyst apart is its remarkable performance in the semi-hydrogenation of acetylene, an important industrial process. In the presence of excess ethene, and using only visible light illumination without any external heating, the catalyst achieved an ethene production rate of 320 mmol g−1 h−1 with around 90% selectivity. This efficiency surpasses all known plasmonic and traditional thermal catalysts.
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