Nanobiophotonics

In this work we want to present a simple, fast and cost-efficient synthesis of a metal nanoparticle catalyst on glass support for plasmon driven heterogeneous photocatalysis. It is based on the efficient mixing of metal salts as particle precursors with porous glass as supporting material in a mixer ball mill, and the subsequent realization of a complete catalyst system by laser sintering the obtained powder on a glass plate as support. So we could obtain catalyst systems with a high particle proportion and an even spatial particle distribution in a rapid process, which can be applied to various kind of metal salt resulting in plasmon active metal nanoparticles. Furthermore, the catalyst production process presented here is easily scalable to any size of area to be coated. Finally, we want to demonstrate the catalytic performance of our catalysts by the model reaction of ethanol degradation in a self-designed lab-scale reactor.