Pyroelectric catalysis (pyro-catalysis) can convert environmental temperature fluctuations into clean chemical energy, such as hydrogen. However, compared with the more common catalysis strategy, such as photocatalysis, pyro-catalysis is inefficient due to slow temperature changes in the ambient environment.
Illustration of potential applications of combining pyroelectric materials and the localized thermo-plasmonic effect of noble metal nanomaterials. Credit: Dr Lei Dangyuan's group / City University of Hong Kong Recently, a team co-led by researchers at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) triggered a significantly faster and more efficient pyro-catalytic reaction using localized plasmonic heat sources to rapidly and efficiently heat up the pyro-catalytic material and allow it to cool down. The findings open up new avenues for efficient catalysis for biological applications, pollutant treatment and clean energy production. Pyro-catalysis refers to the catalysis triggered by surface charges in pyroelectric materials induced by temperature fluctuations. It is a green, self-powered catalysis technique that harvests waste thermal energy from the environment. It has attracted increasing attention in clean energy production and reactive oxygen species generation, which can be further used for disinfection and dye treatment. However, most of the currently available pyroelectric materials are not efficient if the ambient temperature doesn't change much over time. As the environmental temperature change rate is often limited, a more viable way to increase the pyro-catalytic efficiency is to increase the number of temperature cycles. But it is a great challenge to achieve multiple thermal cycling in the pyro-catalyst within a short time interval using conventional heating methods. Challenge of…