Correlation between surface morphology and photocatalytic performance of electrochemically anodized SnO₂ nanoparticles

Dependence of photocatalytic activity of tin oxide nanostructures (SnO2 NS) on the surface morphology is reported. In contrast to previous literature, an electrochemical anodization of Sn foils was successfully carried out to switch SnO2 porous into nanoparticles (NPs). Modifying the surface was limited to a short-time anodization between 10 and 20 min with fixing electrolyte concentration and anodization voltage. Semi-circular tetragonal-phased SnO2 NPs were figured out by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Also, fluorescence spectra confirm that the energy gap was expanded to 4.14 eV. Accordingly, high photo-efficiency (93.08 %) for degrading methylene blue (MB) dye was obtained. Therefore, unlike several studies on porous, the results suggest that the anodized nanoparticles are promising for high-performance catalysts.