Wang, CongShen, MengyanHuo, HaibinRen, HaizhouJohnson, Michael2014-03-052020-02-142014-03-052020-02-142011-10-21Wang, C., Shen, M., Huo, H., Ren, H., Johnson, M. (2011, October 21). Using metal nanostructures to form hydrocarbons from carbon dioxide, water and sunlight. AIP Advances 1(4), 1-8. http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/adva/1/4/10.1063/1.365784710.1063/1.3657847http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12517/145Mengyan Shen serves on the faculty at UMass Lowell in the Department of Physics & Applied Physics and is head of the University’s Laboratory for Nanoscience and Laser Applications. Cong Wang, Haibin Huo, Haizhou Ren are Graduate Students in the Department of Physics & Applied Physics at UMass Lowell.Based on experimental results, we propose a mechanism that allows the use of metal nanostructures to synthesize hydrocarbons and carbohydrates from carbon dioxide, water and sunlight. When sunlight impinges on cobaltnanostructures in a glass chamber, its intensity is greatly enhanced around the tips of the nanostructures through surface plasmonexcitations focusing effect, and it then photodissociates the water and carbon dioxide molecules through enhanced photon absorptions of ions around the tips of the nanostructures. The photodissociated molecules in excited states remain on the cobaltnanostructuresurfaces and various hydrocarbons and carbohydrates then will be formed around the surfaces at temperatures much lower than 100 oC.en-USArticle