SnO₂/carbon composites prepared by hydrothermal electrochemical method

In this article, SnO₂/carbon composites were prepared by hydrothermal electrochemical method. Stannous chloride dihydrate (SnCl₂·H₂O) and glucose were used as Sn sources and carbon sources, respectively. Effects of the molar ratio of glucose/SnCl₂ on structure, morphology, and properties of the composites were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, FTIR, SEM, and cyclic voltammetry. Results indicated that SnO₂ had the tetragonal rutile structure and carbon was diamond like carbon (DLC) structure. It was observed that the morphology and electrochemical properties of samples were affected by the molar ratio of glucose/SnCl₂. Increasing the molar ratio of glucose/SnCl₂ induced grain shape change from cube to spherical, decrease in grain size and increase of cyclic reversibility. When the molar ratio of glucose/SnCl₂ was 100%, 100 nm spherical SnO₂/carbon composites could be prepared by hydrothermal electrochemical method, which had a pair of redox peaks, and the peak positions were − 0.32/− 0.14 V and − 0.18/0.10 V at 5 mV/s in 1 M LiOH solution. At various scanning rates, there was little variation in the oxidation/reduction peak positions. It was considered to be a promising material for fast and reversible Li-ion alloying and de-alloying.