Synthesis of TiO₂/SnO₂ core shell nanocomposite via sol-gel method

Abstract

The particles of TiO2 core/ SnO2 shell nanocomposite were prepared by hydrolysis of SnCl4.5H2O in the presence of titania nanoparticle after drying and calcinations treatments. TiO2 particle were produced from titanium isopropoxide sol by hydrothermal processing. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to characterize the TiO2/ SnO2 core shell nanocomposites. The obtained results from XRD show that the SnO2 nanoparticles coated on TiO2 yields diffraction peaks correspond to the crystalline SnO2 phase. Also, TEM results show that the nanocomposite particles have a spherical morphology and a narrow size distribution. The thickness of SnO2 shell on the surface of TiO2 particles were about 8 nm. Moreover, the results obtained from EDX analysis show that the core-shell structured nanocomposites have crystalline structure.

Studying Structural and Optical Properties of TiO2–SnO2 Core–Shell Synthesized by Sol–Gel Route

“…(It can be seen qualitatively in the TEM images and XRD patterns.) The TS1 sample with the highest shell thickness has the lowest band gap energy, which may be due to the oxygen vacancies that are usually formed in transparent conductive oxides . Chetri et al.…”

“…The particles of the core–shell structured composite have improved the physical and chemical properties over their single component counterpart, and hence, are potentially useful in a broader range of applications. The structure, size, and composition of these particles can be easily altered in a controllable way to tailor their magnetic, optical, mechanical, thermal, electrical, and catalytic properties . Coating is one of the methods that can be used for the formation of core–shell nanoparticles.…”

“…To the present time, many routes such as the sol–gel process, layer‐by‐layer technique, electro‐deposition method, and encapsulation of nanoparticles by an in situ polymerization have been developed to fabricate the core–shell materials. Also the inverted core–shell nanostructures have been reported, where the core material is typically a higher band gap material and the shell material is a lower band gap material . Nowadays, typical composite nanostructures like the core–shell nanostructure with a rod‐like shape are also fabricated with outside‐covered layers, for example, TiO 2 /ZnO, ZnO/MgO, and ZnO/Er 2 O 3 .…”

“…Nowadays, typical composite nanostructures like the core–shell nanostructure with a rod‐like shape are also fabricated with outside‐covered layers, for example, TiO 2 /ZnO, ZnO/MgO, and ZnO/Er 2 O 3 . The prevalence of the works has been focused on TiO 2 because of its appropriate thermodynamic positions of the valence and conduction band (CB)edges . However, similar to other metal oxide semi‐conductors, the high recombination rate of photo‐generated charge carriers is their major shortcoming that decreases the photocatalytic efficiency.…”

“…It is a semi‐conductor material with an/a indirect/direct band gap about 2.86 to 3.63 eV at room temperature (RT) according to its various phases . The high optical and chemical stabilities of TiO 2 increase the lifetime of the TiO 2 ‐based devices . The inherent problems of TiO 2 are its low‐quantum yield due to a significant recombination of photo‐generated charges and the mismatch of its band gap energy and the solar spectrum .…”