Structural properties of size-controlled SnO2 nanopowders produced by sol–gel method

SnO2 nanoparticles were synthesized by sol–gel method with different sol concentrations and the effect of sol concentration on the structural properties of SnO2 was investigated. The aim of this work is synthesizing of SnO2 nanoparticles from SnCl2·2H2O (tin (II) chloride dihydrate) precursor to obtain high quality powders for using as Li-ion anode material. For this purpose, during the SnO2 precursor solution preparation, chloride ions were removed from the solution and then the sol–gel synthesis was applied. Produced SnO2 nanopowders were characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission gun scanning electron microscopy (FEG-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analyses. TG-DTA and FT-IR analysis were performed on the synthesized sol. Grain size, crystal index and lattice strains of SnO2 particles were calculated. The results showed that the grain size of particles has increased by the increasing of sol concentration, and the crystallinity has been improved. The smallest crystallite size (6.03 nm) was obtained from the SnO2 sample of 6 mmole concentration sol and maximum size (9.65 nm) from 14 mmole sol according to W–H analysis.