Molecular-level insight into photocatalytic CO reduction with HO over Au nanoparticles by interband transitions.

Achieving CO reduction with HO on metal photocatalysts and understanding the corresponding mechanisms at the molecular level are challenging. Herein, we report that quantum-sized Au nanoparticles can photocatalytically reduce CO to CO with the help of HO by electron-hole pairs mainly originating from interband transitions. Notably, the Au photocatalyst shows a CO production rate of 4.