Electrochemical synthesis of tin complexes and preparation of nano-sized SnO2

Abstract

Tin complexes were directly prepared by using tin metal as sacrificial anode in a cell without separating the cathode and anode spaces. The products were characterized by using FT-IR, NMR and Raman spectra. The influence of temperature and conductive additives on product yield was also investigated. The study shows that direct electrochemical preparation of tin complexes such as Sn(OCH2CH2OCH3)4, Sn(OEt) 2(acac)2, Sn(OBu)2(acac)2 and Sn(OCH2CH2OCH3)2(acac)2 have high current efficiency and electrolysis yield than those of Sn(OR) 4, and these tin complexes have high purity and can be directly used as sol-gel precursor for preparation of nanometer SnO2. The experiment shows that the temperature controlling in the range of 40-60 °C, selecting R4NBr as conductive additives and preventing tin anode from being passivated or covered by electrochemical products can improve product yield. The study also shows that nano-sized SnO2 prepared by this method has tetragonal cassiterite structure with a narrow size distribution of (10 ± 0.4) nm.