Teams from India, the US and Thailand have studied the mechanism of the catalytic activity of gold nanoparticles in semiconducting zinc oxide/gold nanocomposites used in photocatalysis and dye-sensitised solar cells.
The study was carried out to better understand the charge-transfer process at the semiconductor/metal interface to optimise the catalysts’ performance.
The team found that the gold nanocomposites improve the energy conversion efficiency of the solar cells compared to zinc oxide nanoparticles.
Read the PCCP paper today:
Photoselective excited state dynamics in ZnO–Au nanocomposites and their implications in photocatalysis and dye-sensitized solar cells
S Sarkar, A Makhal, T Bora, S Baruah, J Dutta and S Kumar Pal
Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/c1cp20892f
