Surfactant assisted hydrothermal synthesis of porous 3-D hierarchical SnO2 nanoflowers for photocatalytic degradation of Rose Bengal

• SnO2 nanoflowers were synthesized hydrothermally using sodium dodecyl sulfate.
• Photocatalytic activity of SnO2 towards RB dye has been investigated.
• Effect of catalyst dosage, pH of the dye solution has been studied.
• Possible photocatalytic mechanism under visible-light irradiation was proposed.

Novel visible-light-activated tin dioxide (SnO2) nanoflowers possessing high surface area (~44 m2/g) is fabricated through a facile hydrothermal technique using Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as structure directing agent which assisted in generating the porosity and induces beautiful flower like morphology. The highly porous SnO2 exhibits excellent response towards degradation of Rose Bengal (RB) dye under visible light (λ>400 nm) irradiation wherein the ~96% degradation of RB was achieved within 90 min.