Leeth Holterhoff Andrew, Girgis Victoria, Gibbs John G
Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA.
Chem Commun (Camb). 2020 Apr 14;56(29):4082-4085. doi: 10.1039/d0cc00063a. Epub 2020 Mar 11.
Self-propelling, light-activated colloidal particles can be actuated in water alone. Here we study the effect of adding different amounts of a gold/palladium alloy to titanium dioxide-based, active colloids. We observe a correlation between alloy-thickness and the average speed of the particles, and we discover an intermediate thickness leads to the highest activity for this system. We argue that a non-continuous thin-film of the co-catalyst improves the efficiency of water-splitting at the surface of the particles, and in-turn, the performance of "fuel-free" self-propulsion.
自推进式光激活胶体粒子仅在水中就能被驱动。在此，我们研究了向基于二氧化钛的活性胶体中添加不同量的金/钯合金的效果。我们观察到合金厚度与粒子平均速度之间存在相关性，并且发现中间厚度会使该系统具有最高的活性。我们认为，助催化剂的非连续薄膜提高了粒子表面水分解的效率，进而提高了“无燃料”自推进的性能。
