The mechanism study of redox mediator to transfer the photogenerated electrons is extremely desirable for artificial Z-scheme photocatalytic systems. Here we find that the alpha-Fe2O3 exposed by {012} and {104} facets can facilitate the reduction of IO3-, which results in increasing the activity of photocatalytic water oxidation significantly. By employing NaIO3 as an electron acceptor, the O-2 evolution activity (309.4 mu mol h(-1) g(-1)) of alpha-Fe2O3 photocatalyst mainly exposed by {012} and {104} facets is 84 times higher than that (3.68 mu mol h(-1) g(-1)) of alpha-Fe2O3 mostly exposed by {101} and {111} planes. We anticipate that the findings in this work may open the door for further development of enhanced Z-scheme photocatalytic systems. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.