Rapid and scalable synthesis of crystalline tin oxide nanoparticles with superior photovoltaic properties by flame oxida
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Research Letter
Rapid and scalable synthesis of crystalline tin oxide nanoparticles with superior photovoltaic properties by flame oxidation Easwaramoorthi Ramasamy, International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials, Hyderabad 500005, India P. Kathirvel, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore 641004, India S. Kumar, Koppoju Suresh, and Ganapathy Veerappan, International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials, Hyderabad 500005, India Address all correspondence to Easwaramoorthi Ramasamy and S. Kumar at [email protected]; [email protected] (Received 10 July 2017; accepted 6 September 2017)
Abstract
Tin oxide (SnO2) nanoparticles in gram scale quantity were synthesized from inexpensive Sn feedstock by flame oxidation. Selection of optimal feedstock size based on computational fluid dynamics ensures complete conversion of Sn into SnO2 nanoparticles. The rapid melting and oxidation of feedstock in high-temperature oxidative flame endow the crystalline and phase-pure SnO2 nanoparticles, as evident from x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy analysis. Dye-sensitized solar cells fabricated using flame-SnO2 nanoparticles show higher efficiency (ɳ = 2.72%) than that of commercial SnO2 nanoparticles (ɳ = 1.53%). The increased efficiency is attributed to suppression of electron recombination caused by passivation of sub-band-edge surface states.
Introduction Wide band gap metal oxide semiconductor (i.e., TiO2, ZnO, and SnO2) nanostructures are of considerable interest to scientists and engineers because of their technological applications spanning from sensor, display, and catalyst to energy conversion and storage devices [1]. In particular, SnO2 has been emerged as one of the appealing candidate material for aforementioned applications owing to its large band gap (3.6 eV), high electron mobility (100–200 cm2 V−1 S−1) and superior chemical tolerance [2–4]. Several studies have shown that the distinctive properties of SnO2 are largely influenced by its size, morphology, crystallinity, and phase [5, 6]. Hence, the development of synthesis techniques with good control over the size, shape, and phase of the SnO2 has become the subject of intense research over the past decade [7–9]. Various metal oxide nanostructures, including SnO2 are usually prepared by wet chemical approaches such as co-precipitation, sol–gel and solvothermal methods [10]. Although these ‘bottom-up’ batch processes can produce metal oxides with desired microstructural features, multiple post-synthesis washing steps and low-yield undermine their scaling up potential and economic viability for large-scale manufacturing. Flame synthesis technique is one of the most potential routes for the high-throughput volume production of metal oxide nanostructures in an industrially viable atmosphere [11, 12]. Tin oxide nanostructures with different morphology and crystalline features have been previously produced from the pyrolysis of a volatile tin precursor (SnCl4 or C16H30O4Sn) in a
high-temperature flame,
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