Facile synthesis of porous SnO2 quasi-nanospheres for photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B

Porous SnO2 quasi-nanospheres were successfully synthesized by a template- and surfactant-free hydrothermal method. The structure, morphology and optical properties were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high solution TEM (HRTEM) and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS). The results showed that the uniform SnO2 quasi-nanospheres with a diameter of ~400 nm were prepared on a large scale. Moreover, it was found that such quasi-nanospheres consisted of numerous nanoparticles 4-6 nm in diameters with a tetragonal crystal structure. The photocatalytic activity of SnO2 quasi-nanospheres was investigated by degradation Rhodamine B (RhB) under UV-vis light irradiation, which exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity (the degradation of RhB even reached 82% within 60 min).