Synthesis of Fe-doped nanosized SnO2 powders by chemical co-precipitation method

Abstract Fe-doped nanosized SnO2 powders were prepared by chemical co-precipitation technique using SnCl4 and FeCl3 as starting materials and water as a carrier. Experimental results show that the grain size of Fe-doped SnO2 crystallites is smaller than 5 nm, and the particle size is smaller than 15 nm. When the calcination temperature is below 650 °C, the SnO2 crystal has tetragonal lattice structure. At higher temperature the particles become a two-phase mixture of tetragonal SnO2 and hexagonal Fe2O3 crystallites. Fe doping can obviously prevent the growth of nanosized SnO2 crystallites, and a higher Fe-doping concentration is more effective to prevent the growth of nanosized SnO2 particles when the calcination temperature is below 550 °C.