Fabrication of the SnO2/α-Fe2O3 Hierarchical Heterostructure and Its Enhanced Photocatalytic Property

A necklacelike SnO2/alpha-Fe2O3 hierarchical heterostructure was successfully fabricated by chemical vapor deposition method, using SnO2 nanowires with the preferential growth direction of [001] direction as template. Element mapping and transmission electron microscopy analysis proved that the hierarchical heterostructure was factually an assembly constructed with a SnO2/alpha-Fe2O3 nanocable and a series of pure alpha-Fe2O3 disks, and the interfacial orientation relation ship was (100)(SnO2),//(110)(Fe2O3) and [001] (SnO2)// [001] (FeO3). Such a novel hierarchical heterostructure has been proved to present enhanced photocatalytic ability to degradation of methylene blue under visible light due to improvement of the hole electron separation efficiency.