A novel rose flower-like SnO hierarchical structure synthesized by a hydrothermal method in an ethanol/water system

Rose flower-like SnO hierarchical 3D architectures consisting of well-ordered microsheets were synthesized by a template-free and surfactant-free hydrothermal method based on the reaction between SnCl2 and NaOH in ethanol/water. The ethanol amount is a crucial factor in controlling the size and morphology of the microsheets. Ethanol can accelerate the delamination of the SnO blocks to the microsheets, and the microsheets changed from a quasi square to an octodecahedral shape with the increase of the ethanol ratio. When the volume ratio of ethanol/water is 2:1, the microstructure of SnO presents a rose flower-like hierarchical architecture with a diameter of about 40 μm, which is regularly composed of numerous well-ordered thin microsheets with octodecahedral shape, and the microsheets were formed by countless nanoparticles. A possible growth mechanism of the architectures was proposed. Moreover, SnO2 nanospheres were synthesized by a similar experiment only without NaOH, which showed that NaOH was crucial to the formation of SnOx.

Graphical abstractRose flower-like SnO composed of well-ordered microsheets was synthesized by a simple hydrothermal method without templates or surfactants.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide