Room temperature synthesis of novel worm like tin oxide nanoparticles for photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants

Herein, we report the synthesis of novel worm like structured SnO₂ nanoparticles photocatalysts by chemical precipitation route from sodium stannate in the absence of a precipitating agent. The physico-chemical characteristics of the synthesized SnO₂ were studied using powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS), Photoluminescence (PL), and High resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) studies. PXRD and HRTEM analysis reveals the formation of amorphous SnO₂ in the tetragonal crystal structure. XPS and PL characterization affirmed the presence of oxygen defects in SnO₂, which could be due to Sn²⁺ present in the lattices. The optical band gap calculated using Kubelka-Munk method to be 3.8 eV. Photocatalytic studies of the prepared SnO₂ catalyst showed 92% of Rhodamine-B (RhB) degradation in 120 min under UV irradiation. The enhanced dye degradation activity is attributed to oxygen defects in the SnO₂ catalyst, which are responsible for the enhanced charge separation and inhibition of electron-hole pair recombination by trapping photogenerated electrons.