Nanocatalosomes as Plasmonic Bilayer Shells with Interlayer Catalytic Nanospaces for Solar‐Light‐Induced Reactions
Amit Kumar, Nitee Kumari, Sateesh Dubbu, Sumit Kumar, Taewan Kwon, Jung Hun Koo, Jongwon Lim, Inki Kim, Yoon‐Kyoung Cho, Junsuk Rho, In Su Lee
Abstract
Interest and challenges remain in designing and synthesizing catalysts with nature-like complexity at few-nm scale to harness unprecedented functionalities by using sustainable solar light. We introduce "nanocatalosomes"-a bio-inspired bilayer-vesicular design of nanoreactor with metallic bilayer shell-in-shell structure, having numerous controllable confined cavities within few-nm interlayer space, customizable with different noble metals. The intershell-confined plasmonically coupled hot-nanospaces within the few-nm cavities play a pivotal role in harnessing catalytic effects for various organic transformations, as demonstrated by "acceptorless dehydrogenation", "Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling" and "alkynyl annulation" affording clean conversions and turnover frequencies (TOFs) at least one order of magnitude higher than state-of-the-art Au-nanorod-based plasmonic catalysts. This work paves the way towards next-generation nanoreactors for chemical transformations with solar energy.