title: A facile hydrothermal strategy for synthesis of SnO2 nanorods-graphene nanocomposites for high performance photocatalysis.
abstract: In this study, we report a facilely hydrothermal process for synthesizing SnO2 nanorods-graphene (SnO2 nanorods-GR) composite using graphite oxide and SnCl4 as raw materials. The SnO2 nanorods-GR composite was characterized by X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, Xray photoelectron spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis. Compared to commercial TiO2 nanoparticles P25 and neat SnO2 nanorods, the SnO2 nanorods-GR composite exhibits higher photocatalytic activity under UV light irradiation. The mechanism of its high photocatalytic activity is mainly ascribed to the synergy effect between SnO2 and graphene, in which graphene acts as an adsorbent and electron acceptor due to its large structure of pi-pi conjugation from sp2 hybrid carbon atoms. The results demonstrated in this study provide a promising way to enhance the photocatalytic activity by compounding semiconductive nanocrystals with graphene.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology, 381 Wushan Road, Guangzhou 510640, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lu-Ya
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Wei-De
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Yu-Xiang
authors.initials: YX
authors.lastname: Yu