Seed-mediated growth of Au core-Pd shell-structured nanoparticles on a polymer nanofibrous mat as a highly active photocatalytic composite material

Photocatalytic technologies have received extensive attention as green catalysts. Here, we successfully designed gold (Au) core-Palladium (Pd) shell-structured nanoparticles (NPs) as a nanoreactor, in which the Pd shell provides the active sites and Au core offers strong plasmonic properties. We then used the seed-mediated growth approach to fabricate the Au core-Pd shell-structured nanoparticles on a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanofibrous mat as a highly active photocatalytic composite material for hydrogenation reactions under room temperature. Our results show that the Au core-Pd shell-structured nanoparticles are more effective in catalyzing the hy-drogenation of styrene than the Pd nanoparticles. The photocatalytic experimental results show that the yields of ethylbenzene under light conditions are higher than that under 60 degrees C in the dark. This shows that the PVA/Au NP/Pd NP composite material can efficiently utilize heat from light to promote catalytic reactions via photothermal effects. The PVA/Au NP/Pd NP composite material not only exhibits a very high photocatalytic efficiency, but can also easily recover from the reaction. The work offers a simple and efficient strategy for recyclable and highly active catalysts for light-driven organic reactions.