Fabrication of TiO2/Fe2O3/CdS systems: effects of Fe2O3 and CdS content on superior photocatalytic activity

Abstract A heterostructured material of CdS and Fe2O3 nanoparticle-modified TiO2 nanotube array (NTA) photoelectrode (TiO2/Fe2O3/CdS) is reported in this work. TiO2/Fe2O3 was prepared by annealing TiO2 NTAs pre-loaded with Fe(OH)3, which was uniformly clung to TiO2 NTAs using sequential chemical bath deposition (S-CBD). Subsequently, CdS nanoparticles were deposited on TiO2/Fe2O3 using the successive ion layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) technique. Three-dimensional (3D) TiO2/Fe2O3/CdS samples generated a photocurrent of approximately 4.92 mA cm−2, with a photoconversion efficiency of 4.36%, which is