Fabrication and Characterization of Antimony-doped Tin Oxide Coating Diatomite Conductive Material with Microporous Structure

Porous and conductive diatomite composite materials were prepared via the calcination of the Sb-SnO2-coated diatomite precursor derived from the co-precipitation route with diatomite as the substrate.Con-ductivity of the samples was influenced by the Sb-SnO2 coating ratio.Calcination temperature had an impact on the crystal lattice parameters and grain sizes,hence altering the conductivity and resistivity of the composite materials.The samples were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction(XRD),scanning electron microscope(SEM),trans-mission electron microscope(TEM),energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry(EDS),N2 adsorption-desorption meas-urement(BET),and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry(FT-IR).The conductive performance of the samples was determined using a Four-Point Probe Meter apparatus.It is shown that the mesoporous(pore diameter = 6 nm) sample with n(Sn)/n(Sb)=8/1 and a Sb-SnO2 coating ratio of 25.8wt% derived from calcination at 700℃ exhibited the lowest resistivity of 22 Ω?cm.