Tin oxide is a mineral which crystallizes in a rutile structure. Due to variety of synthesis possibilities and different morphologies, many types of usage are known, e.g. it can be implemented as a sensor material for gas detection, for photocatalysts as well as electrodes for lithium-ion batteries. There are many different synthesis routes, including many types of hydrothermal synthesis.
In my master’s thesis, I focused on hydrothermal synthesis of SnO2 with water, ethanol, NaOH, citric acid and tin chloride. Via various experiments I tried to optimize synthesis to obtain the most branched chrystals. I ran the synthesis experiments with different orders of addition of the reactants and with different amounts of citric acid in the reaction mixture, keeping the temperature and heating time constant in all experiments. The product was characterized by XRD and SEM.
In most experiments I obtained flower-like shaped crystals, only at higher citric acid concetracions did the crystals become more rounded. The crystals without citric acid had highest lenght-to-width ratio. In experiments with different orders of addition of reactants, I found that the length-to-width ratio does not change significantly. Under certain experimental conditions I also found hexagonal flower-like structures.
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