Amorphous FeOOH-mediated directional charges transfer in light-switchable oxygen vacancies BiOBr for boosting photocatalytic oxygen evolution

Directing the transfer of photoinduced charges to various reaction sites through catalyst design plays crucial roles in enhancing photocatalytic oxygen evolution. Herein, we used a facile alcoholysis method to synthesize amorphous FeOOH modified light-switchable oxygen vacancies BiOBr, which exhibited outstanding photocatalytic oxygen evolution activity. Density functional theory calculations, photoelectronchemical tests and kelvin probe force microscopy revealed that FeOOH overlayer acts as the hole storage layer, while oxygen vacancies (OVs) provided a number of electron trap centers. Benefiting from this synergistic effect, the photogenerated charges showed an outstanding directional transfer performance, which greatly prolong the lifetime of the photo-induced charge carriers. Moreover, as a cocatalyst for water oxidation, FeOOH can effectively lower the kinetics barriers and provide more active sites for oxygen evolution reaction. Therefore, under simulated sunlight irradiation, the 2%FeOOH/BiOBr photocatalyst demonstrated remarkable photocatalytic activity towards oxygen evolution, achieving a rate of 284.34 μmol·g−1·h−1, which is around 1.71 folds than pure BiOBr. Finally, the possible reaction mechanism has also been discussed. This work has provided valuable insights and inspiration for the effective design and optimization of BiOBr-based catalysts, which play a critical role in facilitating efficient directional transfer of photogenerated charges.