Nanocatalosomes as Plasmonic Bilayer Shells with Interlayer Catalytic Nanospaces for Solar-Light-Induced Reactions

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.