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 5nm, and the particle size is smaller than 15nm. When the calcination temperature is below 650 deg 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 deg C.