LAUSR

With an extension of the absorption band toward visible light, plasmonic photocatalysts directly harvest energy from solar light without compromising the activity, offering a desirable way to address energy and environmental issues. Here we demonstrate photocatalytic oxidation of formaldehyde in air over plasmonic Au/TiO2 catalyst under visible light in a single-pass continuous flow reactor. Compared to that under dark, a significant enhancement of up to 5 times the reaction rate at 13% RH under visible light is achieved. Au/TiO2 catalyst exhibits very high activity, a complete conversion of formaldehyde of 83.3% under visible light at 44% RH, but is completely inactive in dry air even under visible light. Also, the plasmonic Au/TiO2 is efficient for photocatalytic oxidation of formaldehyde under visible light, which is evidenced by a slight difference of conversion between UV light and visible light. To disclose the underlying mechanism, in situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform (DRIFT) spec...