Preparation and properties of antimony doped tin oxide nanopowders and their conductivity

•ATO was prepared by solid-liquid heterogeneous coprecipitation reaction.•The microstructure of ATO is mesh, which is beneficial to its conductivity.•ATO has high specific surface area and excellent electrical conductivity.•ATO was prepared into waterborne coating and it has excellent physical property.

Antimony doped tin oxide (ATO) nanopowders were prepared by solid-liquid heterogeneous coprecipitation reaction, using SnCl4·5H2O and SbCl3 as the raw materials, NH4HCO3 as the neutralizing agent, CH3COOH as the cosolvent, and C2H5OH as the reaction medium. The ATO nanopowders were prepared into waterborne transparent antistatic coatings. The structure and properties of ATO powders were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area measurement and resistance tester. The results show that ATO nanopowders, whose primary particle size is about 5–8 nm and specific surface area is 92.75 m2 g−1, have a structure of tetrahedral rutile and a uniform shape of approximately sphere, and the resistivity of ATO nanopowders reaches 1.0 Ω cm. The ATO coating is applied on the surface of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film by roller coating method, the test shows that the ATO film has excellent physical properties. When the visible light transmission rate is more than 80%, the surface resistance of coating film is about 105 Ω, which is completely satisfied with the requirement of the anti-static electricity field.

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