Boosting multi-hole water oxidation catalysis on hematite photoanodes under low bias

The accumulation of multiple surface holes is considered to be the key to efficient photoelectrochemical(PEC)water oxidation.Previous PEC water oxidation studies commonly apply high potentials(>1.2 VRHE)to achieve this key.But how to complete multi-hole transfer under low bias(<1.2 VRHE)remains unknown.Herein,we find that,on a typical visible-light photoanode,hematite(α-Fe_(2)O_(3)),UV excitation plays a indispensable role in driving multi-hole water oxidation under low bias.Compared with the visible-light excitation,the UV excitation promotes the formation of adjacent surface-trapped holes onα-Fe_(2)O_(3) at 0.9VRHE,thereby increasing the reaction order of surface holes from~1 to~2 and improving the PEC water oxidation activity by one order of magnitude.The UV irradiation reduces the formation probability of self-trapped excitons and results in~3 to 5-fold increase of surface holes.These advantages enable the UV excitation to contribute about 40%to the total photocurrent under 1 solar illumination,even though its energy only occupies 6%of the incident light.This mechanism is also applicable to boost selective two-hole oxidation of thioether at 0.1 VFc/Fc+and nitrite at 0.9 VRHE.