A photocatalyst is a material that absorbs light to bring it to a higher energy level and provides such energy to a reacting substance to make a chemical reaction occur. In the group, we create nanomaterials that show light absorption capabilities across the visible and infrared ranges. We exploit this optical property to drive a range of chemical reactions including degradation of dyes, ferricyanide reduction, hydrogen evolution and oxygen evolution reactions.

O. De Silva, M. Singh, S. Mahasivam, N. Mahmood, B. J. Murdoch, R. Ramanathan* and V. Bansal. Importance of phase purity in two-dimentional β-Co(OH)2 for driving oxygen evolution reaction. ACS Applied Nano Materials, 2022, DOI: 10.1021/acsanm.2c03468.

S. Bhanushali, S. Mahasivam, R. Ramanathan, M. Singh, E. L. Harrop Mayes, B. J. Murdoch, V. Bansal, and M. Sastry. Photomodulated spatially confined chemical reactivity in a single silver nanoprism. ACS Nano, 2020, 14 (9): 11100-11109.

S. R. Anderson, A. P. O'Mullane, E. Della Gaspera, R. Ramanathan* and V. Bansal. LSPR‐induced catalytic enhancement using bimetallic copper fabrics prepared by galvanic replacement reactions. Advanced Materials Interfaces, 2019, 6 (16): 1900516.

S. R. Anderson, M. Mohammadtaheri, D. Kumar, A. P. O'Mullane, M. R. Field, R. Ramanathan, and V. Bansal. Robust nanostructured silver and copper fabrics with localized surface plasmon resonance property for effective visible light induced reductive catalysis.Advanced Materials Interfaces, 2016, 3 (6): 1500632