Construction of heterostructured Fe2O3-TiO2 microdumbbells for photoelectrochemical water oxidation

• Main Authors: Zhang, Peng, Yu, Le, Lou, David Xiong Wen
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Engineering::Chemical engineering; Fe2O3; Heterostructures
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/138639
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

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 Fe2 O3 -TiO2 microdumbbells. With the assistance of preferentially adsorbed hexadecylamine molecules, amorphous TiO2 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 Fe2 O3 -TiO2 microdumbbell photocatalyst. Owing to the heterojunction formed and the unique structure, Fe2 O3 -TiO2 microdumbbells with optimized composition and morphology show enhanced performance for photoelectrochemical water oxidation, compared to monophasic Fe2 O3 and TiO2 materials as well as physical mixtures thereof.