Construction of light-harvesting system for enhanced catalytic performance of Pd nanoframes toward Suzuki coupling reaction

Nanoframe catalysts containing only small amounts of precious metals show very high activities, and therefore have received great attention in recent years. In this work, we report an effective approach for the construction of light-harvesting systems to further enhance the catalytic activity of Pd nanoframes by encapsulating Au nanocrystals into the hollow interior of the nanoframes. Catalytic studies show that the as-prepared Au@Pd-frame nanocrystals can significantly enhance the catalytic activity of Pd nanoframes by a factor of 4.5 toward Suzuki coupling reactions under light irradiation.