Please donot adjust the margins
AuPd nanoparticle surface should be significantly higher than that measured in solution shown by Fig. 4b. As a result, the catalytic
o
performance in Fig. 4a, driven by the photothermal effect, reached the level comparable to 50 C external heating. This result confirms
that aza-CMP exhibits an excellent photothermal effect which can play its dominant role in achieving light-driven benzyl alcohol
oxidation using aza-CMP/Au1Pd2 composite.
The information gleaned above has well demonstrated that the incident light played an important role in promoting the benzyl
alcohol oxidation reaction by aza-CMP/Au1Pd2. We further performed systematic investigations to gain a comprehensive
understanding on the effect of incident light on catalytic benzyl alcohol oxidation. Fig. 4c shows the catalytic performance of aza-
CMP/Au1Pd2 in benzyl alcohol oxidation using the light source with different light intensity (25–450 mW/cm2). At low light intensity
(25 mW/cm2), the conversion of benzyl alcohol is limited by insufficient energy source. Meanwhile, the aza-CMP/Au1Pd2 sample
displayed the gradually reduced benzyl alcohol conversion rate while the selectivity for benzaldehyde production was slightly
promoted by increasing light intensity from 50 mW/cm2 to 450 mW/cm2. This dependence of conversion rate and selectivity on light
intensity may result from light-induced plasmonic hot electrons. Under a high-intensity irradiation of light, hot electrons can be
generated on the surface of bimetallic nanoparticles via localized surface plasmon resonance [37], which may transfer to aza-CMP. The
decrease in electron density on AuPd surface is not preferable for O2 molecular activation [26], reducing the oxidation ability. As a
result, the aza-CMP/Au1Pd2 showed the suppressed conversion rate under 450 mW/cm2 light irradiation, but the selectivity toward
benzaldehyde production which did not require a high density of active oxygen species was slightly improved.
To further evaluate the effect of hot electrons on chemical reactions catalyzed by aza-CMP/Au1Pd2, we also performed catalytic
styrene hydrogenation using aza-CMP/Au1Pd2 under different light intensities. As proven in a previous report, a low electron density
on Pd-based catalysts is beneficial for hydrogenation reactions [38]. As such, a higher conversion rate observed for styrene
hydrogenation can serve as an indicator for the lower electron density on metal nanocatalysts in aza-CMP/Au1Pd2. As displayed in Fig.
4d, the performance of aza-CMP/Au1Pd2 in the hydrogenation of styrene to ethylbenzene was promoted by increasing light irradiation
intensity. This feature suggests the reduction of electron density on the Au1Pd2 under intense light irradiation.
In summary, we have successfully synthesized aza-CMP supported bimetallic AuPd nanoparticles for external heat source-free
benzyl alcohol oxidation. The aza-CMP/Au1Pd2 showed excellent performance in benzyl alcohol oxidation toward benzaldehyde using
simulated light irradiation. This light-driven performance of aza-CMP/Au1Pd2 is attributed to the photothermal effect brought by aza-
CMP nanosheets, which could increase the surrounding temperature of reaction system. Such a photothermal-driven approach can be
extended to other reaction systems such as hydrogenation. This work demonstrates an alternative route to catalyze reactions by
replacing external heating with light illumination.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by National Key R&D Program of China (Nos. 2017YFA0207301, 2017YFA0207302), the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, Nos. 21725102, 21601173, U1832156, 21881240040, 21573212), CAS Key Research
Program of Frontier Sciences (No. QYZDB-SSW-SLH018), CAS Interdisciplinary Innovation Team, and Chinese Universities
Scientific Fund (No. WK2310000067). J. Low was funded by Chinese Academy of Sciences President’s International Fellowship
Initiative (No. 2019PC0114). We thank the support from USTC Center for Micro- and Nanoscale Research and Fabrication.
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