Facile preparation of worm-like mesoporous tin oxide films with super-hydrophilic surface

Abstract

Herein mesoporous tin oxide films were synthesized via a facile chemical process. The effect of calcination temperature and drying conditions on various characteristics of prepared thin films were studied systematically. The results demonstrated that the mesoporous thin films were well organized with uniform surfaces and thermally stable up to 500 °C. The sample aged under low relative humidity (RH = 34%) and calcined at 400 ℃ showed 86.1 m2/g specific surface area. Highly uniform wormlike mesochannels with highest surface area were obtained for the mesoporous SnO2 film which was aged under high relative humidity (RH = 80%) and calcined at 400 ℃ (MTO400-80 sample). A super-hydrophilic surface with a very low contact angle of <5° was observed for the MTO400-80 sample. The excellent wettability along with high surface area and low sheet resistance, resulted in highest photocatalytic activity for degradation of dye molecules with reaction constant of 5.2 × 10−4 min−1 for MTO400-80 sample.