New perspectives in photocatalysis and near-surface chemistry: catalysis meets plasmonics

减少能源需求，并在燃料和能源载体生产所涉及的关键化学过程中将反应导向所需产品，以实现净零经济和环境清洁，是未来可持续社会的一些最紧迫的要求。这一挑战与我们最丰富的能源--光的有效利用密切相关。光还为我们提供了控制反应途径的手段，从而为定义下一代药物的新途径提供了进一步的机会。我们建议制定一项全面的研究计划，以了解和利用统一方法的应用，用于收集光能并引导其实现所需的化学输出，减少产生不需要的或有害的副产品，使用表面等离子体的非凡特性，光在金属纳米结构中激发的电荷密度波。这些激发使得能够在从紫外到红外的宽波长范围内有效地使用电磁辐射，同时将该能量传递给高能电荷载流子和晶格振荡，从而提供从光到吸附在表面处的分子的激发电子态以及到局部热的有效路径。这种组合可以诱导具有较低化学反应活化势垒的化学转化，并开辟了控制可用光切换的化学反应的新范例。正是在这里，等离子体激元学和催化的研究领域相遇。我们的团队由来自英国等离子体和催化社区的主要专家组成，将探索通过将等离子体进步应用于催化（等离子体催化）而实现的新研究方向，以实现对未来可持续社会具有巨大重要性的技术的影响。这一新领域提供的上级光捕获和反应动力学调整的结合将为解决催化领域的关键挑战开辟大量新的可能性。在基于对等离子体催化纳米材料和纳米结构的基础研究的统一方法中，我们将开发通用设计和方法学原理，并将其应用于清洁燃料生产，环境监测和清理以及药物制造中重要的化学反应。我们将建立适合工业规模扩大的光驱动化学反应途径的新战略，同时教育一批新的高度跨学科的研究人员，他们具备未来可持续社会发展所需的关键技能。

Reducing the energy requirements and steering reactions to desired products in key chemical processes involved in the production of fuels and energy carriers for a net-zero economy and for environmental clean-up are some of the most pressing demands for a future sustainable society. This challenge is intimately linked to efficient use of the most abundant energy source available to us, light. Light also provides us with the means to control reaction pathways, opening in turn further opportunities to define new routes to the next generation of pharmaceuticals. We propose to develop a comprehensive research programme in order to understand, and harness, the application of a unified approach for harvesting light energy and channelling it to achieve required chemical outputs, with reduced generation of unwanted or hazardous by-products, using the extraordinary properties of surface plasmons, charge-density waves excited in metallic nanostructures by light. These excitations enable efficient use of electromagnetic radiation over a broad wavelength range from the ultraviolet to the infrared, while at the same time passing this energy on to energetic charge carriers and lattice oscillations, hence providing an efficient pathway from light to excited electronic states of molecules adsorbed at surfaces as well as to local heat. This combination can induce chemical transformations with lower activation barriers for chemical reactions and open up new paradigms for controlling chemical reactions switchable with light. It is here the research fields of plasmonics and catalysis meet. Our team, consisting of key experts from the UK plasmonics and catalysis communities, will explore new research directions enabled by applying plasmonic advances to catalysis (plasmo-catalysis) in order to achieve impact on technologies which are of enormous importance for a future sustainable society. The combination of superior light harvesting and tuning of reaction dynamics that this new field offers will open up a wealth of new possibilities to tackle key challenges in catalysis. In a unified approach based on fundamental research on plasmo-catalytic nanomaterials and nanostructures, we will develop common design and methodology principles and apply them to chemical reactions important in clean fuel production, environmental monitoring and clean-up, as well as pharmaceuticals manufacture. We will establish new strategies for light-driven chemical reaction pathways amenable to industrial scale-up, while at the same time educating a new set of highly interdisciplinary researchers equipped with a key set of skills needed for the advancement of a future sustainable society.