Facile fabrication of hierarchical structure SnO2 coatings using bioactive yeast cell

• Hierarchical structure SnO2 coatings composed of macroporous layer and nanowires were fabricated.
• Well distributed bioactive yeast cell was chosen as bio-template.
• Inner part of the coatings was composed of macroporous structure with the pore size about 2.5±0.5 µm.
• Surface of the coatings was composed of nanoparticles and nanowires of SnO2.

Hierarchical structure SnO2 coatings composed of macroporous layer and nanowires were synthesized through a facile precipitation method using SnCl4 as the raw material, bioactive yeast cell as a bio-template, respectively. The coating was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry and thermo-gravimetric analysis, high resolution scanning electron microscopy. Results showed that the inner part of the coatings was composed of macropores with the mean pore size in the range of 2–3 µm, and the surface of the coatings was composed of nanoparticles and nanowires of SnO2. The sizes of the nanowires are about 80–200 nm in diameter and 20 µm in length. A possible formation mechanism for this kind of hierarchical structure was proposed.