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

在生产燃料和能源载体、实现净零经济和环境清理的关键化学过程中，减少能源需求并将反应导向预期的产品，是未来可持续社会的一些最紧迫的要求。这一挑战与有效利用我们可用的最丰富的能源--光--密切相关。光还为我们提供了控制反应途径的手段，进而打开了更多的机会来定义通往下一代药物的新路线。我们建议制定一项全面的研究方案，以便了解和利用一种统一的方法来收集光能并将其引导以实现所需的化学产出，同时利用表面等离子激子的非凡特性减少不想要的或危险的副产品的产生，表面等离子体是光在金属纳米结构中激发的电荷密度波。这些激发能够在从紫外线到红外的广泛波长范围内有效地利用电磁辐射，同时将这种能量传递给高能电荷载流子和晶格振荡，从而提供了一条从光到表面吸附的分子的激发电子态以及局部热的有效途径。这种结合可以诱导化学反应具有较低的激活势垒的化学转化，并为控制化学反应开辟了新的范式，可以用光来切换。它是等离子体激元和催化研究领域的交汇点。我们的团队由来自英国等离子体和催化界的主要专家组成，将探索通过将等离子体的进步应用于催化(等离子体催化)而实现的新的研究方向，以实现对未来可持续社会具有巨大重要性的技术的影响。这一新领域提供的卓越的光捕获和反应动力学的调节相结合，将为解决催化领域的关键挑战开辟丰富的新可能性。在以等离子体催化纳米材料和纳米结构基础研究为基础的统一方法中，我们将制定共同的设计和方法原则，并将其应用于清洁燃料生产、环境监测和清洁以及药品制造中的重要化学反应。我们将为符合工业规模的光驱动化学反应路径制定新的战略，同时培养一批高度跨学科的新研究人员，他们配备了推进未来可持续社会所需的关键技能。

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.