Thermoplasmonic-induced energy-efficient catalytic oxidation of glycerol over gold supported catalysts using visible light at ambient temperature

Abstract : In this work, we highlight the feasibility of new efficient catalytic processes by laser excitation, exemplified in the reaction of oxidation of glycerol over catalysts based on supported gold nanoparticles. We show that this catalytic oxidation reaction can efficiently proceed via laser excitation of surface plasmon resonance of gold nanoparticles, inducing local thermal heating effect. While the reaction did not occur in the absence of any external heat source, with this original approach, 88% of glycerol was converted after 2 h, leading to the formation of glyceric acid and tartronic acid as main products. The photonic activation led to 2.5 times more efficient conversion than an equivalent thermal activation by conventional heating source. Investigations of the laser power and the nature of support catalyst revealed a significant contribution of electron transfer from plasmonic nanoparticles to TiO² in the oxidation reaction.