Facile synthesis and structural characterization of zinc stannate/tin oxide and zinc stannate/tin composites for the removal of methylene blue from water

In this report, a simple and facile microwave route has been devised to prepare zinc hydroxystannate [ZnSn(OH) 6 ] microcubes in aqueous solution. The zinc hydroxystannate was employed as template nanostructure to synthesize complex metal oxide composites, Zn 2 SnO 4 –SnO 4 and Zn 2 SnO 4 –Sn, nanoparticles by thermal treatment in air and nitrogen environments respectively. The synthesized nanomaterials were structurally characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The composite nanoparticles were fairly spherical, and the diffraction pattern confirmed pure crystalline face-centred cubic structure of Zn 2 SnO 4 and tetragonal structure of SnO 2 nanoparticles. The photocatalytic activity of the composites was evaluated by measuring the degradation of methylene blue (MB) in aqueous solution; and about 84 and 92% degradation of the dye molecules were achieved in 120 min using Zn 2 SnO 4 –Sn and Zn 2 SnO 4 –SnO 4 respectively. This study may provide a simple approach for the preparation and manipulation of functional tin based complex metal oxide nanomaterials which could be useful in different areas of applications.