The ability of plasmonic nanostructures to efficiently harvest light energy and generate energetic hot carriers makes them promising materials for utilization in photocatalytic water spitting. Apart from the traditional Au and Ag based plasmonic photocatalysts, more recently the noble–metal–free alternative plasmonic materials have attracted ever–increasing interest. Here we report the first use of plasmonic zirconium nitride (ZrN) nanoparticles as a promising photocatalyst for water splitting. Highly crystalline ZrN nanoparticles with sizes dominating at 30–50 nm were synthesized that exhibit intense visible and near–infrared absorption due to localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). Without utilizing any noble metal cocatalysts such as Pt, the plasmonic ZrN nanoparticles alone showed stable photocatalytic activity for H₂ evolution in aqueous solution with methanol as sacrificial electron donor. The addition of a cobalt oxide (CoO_x) cocatalyst can facilitate the separation of photogenerated charge carriers and further improve the photocatalytic activity. The optimized CoO_x modified ZrN photocatalyst was observed not only to activate the O₂ evolution reaction with presence of electron acceptor, but also to drive overall water splitting for the simultaneous H₂ and O₂ evolution in the absence of any sacrificial agents.

等离子体纳米结构有效收集光能和产生高能热载流子的能力使其成为用于光催化水喷射的有希望的材料。除了传统的基于金和银的等离子体光催化剂外，最近无贵金属的替代等离子体材料引起了越来越多的兴趣。在这里，我们报告了等离子体氮化锆 (ZrN) 纳米粒子作为水分解的有前途的光催化剂的首次使用。合成了尺寸主要在 30-50 nm 的高度结晶的 ZrN 纳米粒子，由于局部表面等离子共振 (LSPR) 而表现出强烈的可见光和近红外吸收。在不使用任何贵金属助催化剂（如 Pt）的情况下，等离子体 ZrN 纳米粒子单独对 H 表现出稳定的光催化活性₂在以甲醇为牺牲电子供体的水溶液中析出。添加氧化钴（CoO _x）助催化剂可以促进光生电荷载体的分离并进一步提高光催化活性。观察到优化的 CoO _x改性 ZrN 光催化剂不仅可以在存在电子受体的情况下激活 O ₂析出反应，而且还可以在没有任何牺牲剂的情况下驱动整体水分解以同时析出 H ₂和 O _{2 。}