Construction of Heterostructured Fe2O3‐TiO2 Microdumbbells for Photoelectrochemical Water Oxidation

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.