Laser-induced plasmonic heating in copper nanowire fabric as a photothermal catalytic reactor (vol 379, 122285, 2020)

Metallic nanostructures possessing higher surface-to-volume ratio provide a more accessible surface to catalyze chemical reactions compared to the bulk materials. However, scaling up the nanostructures remains complicated and limits the applications as industrial catalysis. Here, we demonstrate a facile method to fabricate a robust and versatile Cu nanostructure at a centimeter scale as an efficient photothermal catalytic reactor. By drop-casting the solution of Cu nanowires into a Teflon mold after solvent evaporation followed by annealing in the H-2/Ar atmosphere, a Cu nanowire fabric possessing a network structure with a high density of porosity is formed. The Cu fabric exhibits a strong absorptance at the spectral range of 400-1200 nm owing to the interband transition, the surface plasmon resonances of Cu nanowires with their near-field coupling, and "light trapped effect" in the network structures. Exposure to 808 nm laser allows for the elevation of the temperature across the whole structure within 2 s and maintaining a stable temperature up to 250 degrees C for 2 h. A heterogeneous copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition reaction is performed using Cu nanowire fabric illuminated by an 808 nm laser. A repeatable yield of > 90% with a reaction time of 4 h, an order of magnitude shorter than conventional copper catalysts at ambient temperature, is achieved suggesting the Cu nanowire fabric as a robust photothermal catalytic reactor.