Synthesis of Fe-doped nanosized SnO2 powders by chemical co-precipitation method

Fe-doped nanosized SnO₂ powders were prepared by chemical co-precipitation technique using SnCl₄ and FeCl₃ as starting materials and water as a carrier. Experimental results show that the grain size of Fe-doped SnO₂ crystallites is smaller than 5 nm, and the particle size is smaller than 15 nm. When the calcination temperature is below 650 °C, the SnO₂ crystal has tetragonal lattice structure. At higher temperature the particles become a two-phase mixture of tetragonal SnO₂ and hexagonal Fe₂O₃ crystallites. Fe doping can obviously prevent the growth of nanosized SnO₂ crystallites, and a higher Fe-doping concentration is more effective to prevent the growth of nanosized SnO₂ particles when the calcination temperature is below 550 °C.