In this work, a facile and in situ method is proposed to prepare a high-performance photoanode with an ultrathin Fe2TiO5 layer on hematite by the reaction of tetrabutyl titanate with electro-reduced Fe film, which avoids using FeOOH film as substrate. The preparation involves 30 s of direct electro-reduction (ER) of Fe film and 3 min of a sol method, followed by thermal treatment. The as-prepared photoanode shows a significant enhancement of the photocurrent density to similar to 2.0 mA/cm(2) (1.23 V vs. RHE). The incorporation of a Co/Pi catalyst resulted in a photocurrent density of similar to 3.05 mA/cm(2). The high photoelectrochemical performance can be attributed to the low microstructural defects, the better carrier separation and faster electron transfer based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and Intensity-modulated photocurrent spectroscopy (IMPS) analysis. In addition, the prepared photoanode shows good stability under both alkaline and neutral conditions. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.