Synthesis of Crystalline Microporous SnO2 via a Surfactant-Assisted Microwave Heating Method: A General and Rapid Method for the Synthesis of Metal Oxide Nanostructures

Abstract

Although synthetic investigations of inorganic nanomaterials had been carried out extensively over the past decade, the rapid synthesis of crystalline microporous nanostructures with a high surface−volume ratio is still a significant challenge. In this work, by combining the excellent properties of both microwave heating and surfactant, we developed for the first time a novel surfactant-assisted microwave heating route for the rapid synthesis of crystalline microporous SnO2 with a very high sensitivity to ethanol. The formation mechanism of the as-prepared microporous SnO2 was been investigated and discussed in this paper. Furthermore, this synthetic route was shown to be a general and rapid method for the shape-controlled synthesis of metal oxide nanostructures.