A FeCoW oxy-hydroxide gel coated Fe2O3 film photoanode has been examined for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water oxidation reaction. The FeCoW coating acts as a hole storage layer, resulting in efficient hole extraction from Fe2O3 for water oxidation. In addition, the surface state of FeCoW/Fe2O3 shifts to higher position, thus allows for a lower turn-on voltage (Von) of the photocurrent. The composite anode exhibits an 84% increase of the photocurrent, at 1.23 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), over the bare Fez 03 photoanode. The Von is as low as 0.67 V vs. RHE. The applied bias photon-to-current efficiency of the composite is 2.7 times higher than that of the bare Fe2O3. Moreover, an extremely low bias photoresponse of 0.45 V vs. RHE and a good stability are observed with the FeCoW/Fe2O3 photoanode. Besides, with changing of the thickness of the FeCoW coating slurry, the PEC performance of the FeCoW/Fe2O3 photoanode can be tuned. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.