One-Pot Hydrothermal Synthesis of Porous SnO2 Nanostructures for Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Pollutants

The modification of particle surface properties by the addition of small surfactant molecules in the initial reaction is one strategy to minimize the strong tendency to aggregate and coarsening of nanoparticles prepared from the hydrothermal process. In this work, porous SnO2 nanostructures were prepared from one-pot hydrothermal method using cationic surfactant, cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB). Effect of morphology on the photocatalytic performance of SnO2 nanostructures were studied towards degradation of a variety of organic pollutants including methyl orange (MO), methylene blue (MB) and Rhodamine B (RhB) under solar light irradiation. It was observed that 98%, 96% and 97% of MB, MO and RhB dyes were degraded in 30 min, 50 min and 40 min of irradiation time respectively. The result shows that, porous nanostructures are helpful in substantial degradation of the organic dyes.