Sonochemical synthesis of SnO2–CuO nanocomposite: diverse applications on Li-ion battery, electrochemical sensing and photocatalytic activity

Abstract

To develop the durability and the reversibility of SnO2-based anodic materials for lithium-ion batteries, a binary composite of SnO2–CuO nanoparticles is obtained by effective ultrasonication method. Well-dispersed and high surface area particles are obtained by ultrasonication method. SnO2–CuO nanocomposite is also analysed for nitrite sensing and photocatalytic dye degradation applications. Synthesised composite is well characterised for the confirmation of elemental presence, crystallinity, surface area, topography and elemental composition. SnO2–CuO anode exhibits high initial discharge capacity of 1365 mA h g−1 and maintains 252 mA h g−1 at 100th cycle for C/10 rate. Stability of multistep electrochemical reversible reactions is confirmed by CV curves during the lithiation/de-lithiation process and also it retains 90 mA h g−1 capacity at higher 2C rate. This study is the first one to report that SnO2–CuO modified glassy carbon electrode for the sensing of 1 mM nitrite. It has proved the sensing activity with a detection limit of 0.82 μM. SnO2–CuO nanocomposite is also capable to degrade 86% of Methylene blue (MB) dye in 150 min under UV light interactions. Enhancement in the results attributed the synergistic effects of well-dispersed and nanoscaled composite particles.