Sol-gel synthesis of less expensive mesoporous titania-tin dioxide systems: Investigation of the influence of tin dioxide on the phase structure, morphology and optical properties

Abstract

Herein the influence of SnO2 on the optical, morphology and phase structure of mesoporous TiO2-SnO2 composites was examined. Composites with Sn/Ti ratio ranging from 0.1 to 5 were synthesized using less expensive sources in the absence of additives. The obtained samples were examined by XRD, HRTEM, SEM-EDAX, XPS, UV-vis DRS, XRF, TGA and nitrogen gas physisorption studies analyses. The physicochemical properties of the TiO2-SnO2 systems depended mainly on the Sn-to-Ti ratio, calcination temperature and the interaction between Se4+ and Ti4+. XRD results depicted that samples with Sn/Ti = 0.1 calcined at <= 600 degrees C exhibited pure anatase TiO2 crystals and the tendency of increasing Sn4+ content facilitated a phase transformation to attain rutile structure. Optical analyses of the samples showed that the absorption of the samples can be extended into the visible region. This study provides a systematic and economical method for large-scale production of TiO2 based composites with desirable properties for various applications. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This work was supported by the research fund of Hanyang University, Korea Republic (Grant Number HY-2015-P)