Hydrothermal synthesis of honeycomb-like SnO hierarchical microstructures assembled with nanosheets

Honeycomb-like hierarchical SnO microstructures were successfully synthesized via a facile cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB)-assisted hydrothermal route. The structure and morphology of the as-prepared sample were characterized by using powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), respectively. The analysis results indicated that the synthesized honeycomb-like SnO microstructures were assembled by numerous single-crystalline nanosheets with the thickness about 80 nm and the exposed {001} facets. The honeycomb-like SnO shows good structural stability when being used as a sacrificial template for synthesizing SnO2. Thermogravimetric (TG) analysis indicated that the onset oxidation temperature of the synthesized SnO to SnO2 is 570 °C.

► Honeycomb-like SnO microstructures were synthesized via a hydrothermal method.
► The honeycomb-like SnO microstructure was assembled by single-crystalline nanosheets.
► The honeycomb-like SnO microstructures have good structural stability.