Deposition efficiency in the preparation of ozone-producing nickel and antimony doped tin oxide anodes

The influence of precursor salts in the synthesis of nickel and antimony doped tin oxide (NATO) electrodes using thermal decomposition from dissolved chloride salts was investigated. The salts investigated were SnCl4×5H2O, SnCl2×2H2O, SbCl3 and NiCl2×6H2O. It was shown that the use of SnCl4×5H20 in the preparation process leads to a tin loss of more than 85 %. The loss of Sb can be as high as 90 % while no indications of Ni loss was observed. As a consequence, the concentration of Ni in the NATO coating will be much higher than in the precursor solution. This high and uncontrolled loss of precursors during the preparation process will lead to an unpredictable composition in the NATO coating and will have negative economic and environmental effects. It was found that using SnCl2×2H20 instead of SnCl4×5H2O can reduce the tin loss to less than 50 %. This tin loss occurs at higher temperatures than when using SnCl4×5H2O where the tin loss occurs from 56 – 147 °C causing the composition to change both during the drying (80 – 110 °C) and calcination (460 -550 °C) steps of the preparation process. Electrodes coated with NATO based on the two different tin salts were investigated for morphology, composition, structure, and ozone electrocatalytic properties.