Bifunctional Au@Pt core–shell nanostructures for in situ monitoring of catalytic reactions by surface-enhanced Raman scattering spectroscopy

Optical probes of heterogeneous catalytic reactions are of great importance for in situ determination of the catalytic activity and monitoring of the reaction process. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy could be used as a sensitive optical probe for this purpose provided that plasmonic metal nanoparticles for Raman enhancement are properly integrated with catalytic metals to form a single entity. Herein we present a facile approach for synthesizing Au@Pt core–shell nanostructures with a controllable surface density of sub-5 nm Pt nanoparticles on the surface of Au nanorods. Systematic investigations on both SERS and catalytic activities of the hybrid nanostructures reveal an optimized surface coverage of Pt. More importantly, we demonstrate that, due to their dual functionalities, the hybrid nanostructures are able to track the Pt-catalysed reaction in real time by measuring the SERS signals of the reactant, intermediate and final products. This SERS-based synergy technique provides a novel approach for quantitatively studying catalytic chemical reaction processes and is suitable for many applications such as reduction and oxidation reactions in fuel cells and catalytic water splitting.