Construction of Heterostructured Fe₂O₃‐TiO₂ Microdumbbells for Photoelectrochemical Water Oxidation

Abstract

Abstract Designing advanced structures for heterojunction photocatalysts is an effective approach to enhance their performance toward solar‐energy conversion. Herein we develop a facile synthetic strategy for the fabrication of Fe 2 O 3 ‐TiO 2 microdumbbells. With the assistance of preferentially adsorbed hexadecylamine molecules, amorphous TiO 2 nanospheres with tunable size are grown at the two ends of Fe‐based metal–organic compound microrods. Subsequent annealing of the hybrid obtained leads to the formation of a novel heterostructured Fe 2 O 3 ‐TiO 2 microdumbbell photocatalyst. Owing to the heterojunction formed and the unique structure, Fe 2 O 3 ‐TiO 2 microdumbbells with optimized composition and morphology show enhanced performance for photoelectrochemical water oxidation, compared to monophasic Fe 2 O 3 and TiO 2 materials as well as physical mixtures thereof.