Photocatalytic water splitting with nanoporous gold

Nanoporous gold represents a connected network of nanometer sized gold ligaments. Due to its high surface to volume ratio it is expected that solar radiation can be efficiently used for water splitting reaction at the surface. The nanoporous gold can be also functionlised with a metal oxide coating via atomic layer deposition to improve the photocatalytic activity. Depending on the applied bias the nanoporous gold electrode can be used as an electrode for hydrogen or oxygen production.