New insights in establishing the structure-property relations of novel plasmonic nanostructures for clean energy applications

Plasmonic nanostructures have provided unique opportunities for harvesting solar energy to facilitate various chemical reactions. In the past decade, localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) has been extensively explored in catalysis to increase the activity and selectivity of chemical transformation reactions under mild reaction conditions, however, they are still subjected to many challenges in terms of lower efficiency, stability and reaction mechanisms under light irradiation conditions. There have been numerous research efforts in exploring the catalytic trends, mechanisms, challenges and applications in plasmonic catalysis. Several cutting-edge characterization techniques (UV-vis, surface voltage spectroscopy, SERS, photoluminescence, photocurrent measurements and theoretical simulations) have been employed to characterize and establish the structure-property relationship of noble metal-based plasmonic hybrid nanostructures. In this review, we have attempted to correlate the operando techniques to understand the structural details and their plasmonic catalytic activities in emerging applications, hydrogen generation and CO₂ reduction reactions.