Developing efficient catalysts to accelerate the rate of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is critical for photocatalytic water-splitting. In this work, metallic Ir, IrO(OH), and core-shell Ir@IrO(OH) were synthesized and employed as OER catalysts for photocatalytic water oxidation. It was found that the Ir@IrO(OH) core-shell heterostructure catalyst showed the best photocatalytic performance among these three catalysts, with the oxygen evolution rate as high as 59.63 mmol g h. Detailed investigations revealed that the excellent photocatalytic activity of Ir@IrO(OH) could be attributed to both the outstanding intrinsic activity of IrO(OH) shell and the efficient electron transfer between the photosensitizer and catalyst.
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