Facile fire treatment of nanostructured hematite with an enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting performance

A novel fire treatment was adopted to activate two types of hematite photoanodes (sol-gel thin films and hydrothermal nanowires), which successfully removed the surface trap states (surface hydroxyls) on hematite. An optimized photocurrent density of 2.63 mA cm(-2) was observed at 1.23 V vs. RHE.