α-Fe2O3/TiO2 3D hierarchical nanostructures for enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting

We have explored the morphological control effect of hierarchical heterostructure α-Fe2O3/TiO2 nanotube electrode by synthesizing varying morphologies of hierarchical heterostructure α-Fe2O3/TiO2 nanotube electrodes. Both the experimental results and theoretical analysis proved that ultrathin α-Fe2O3 nanoflakes branched on TiO2 nanotube electrode showed superior photocurrent density than other shaped α-Fe2O3 nanorod branched on TiO2 nanotube electrodes by balanced electrode design in both morphology and composition. This result suggests that the thin layer of α-Fe2O3 nanoflakes directly connected to anatase TiO2 nanotube structure plays a major role on the photocurrent density. Our electrode design strategy with systematic analysis which can offer significant insight into the factors controlling could be expanded and applied to other hierarchical heterogeneous metal oxide electrode for high performance PEC water splitting.

Hyungkyu Han; Francesca Riboni;  Frantisek Karlicky; Stepan Kment; Anandarup Goswami; Pitchaimuthu Sudhagar; Jeongeun Yoo; Lei Wang; Ondrej Tomanec; Martin Petr; Ondrej Haderka; Chiaki Terashima; Akira Fujishima; Patrik Schmuki; and  Radek Zboril, α-Fe2O3/TiO2 3D hierarchical nanostructures for enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting, Nanoscale, 2017, 9, 134-142, DOI: 10.1039/C6NR06908H