A new green procedure to obtain and photosensitize SnO2, in one step, for solar photocatalysis using natural dyes

In recent years, the synthesis of tin oxide (SnO2) nanoparticles (NPs) through green methods has gained attention due to their potential application in photocatalysis. However, as SnO2 can only be activated by UV radiation, developing new photocatalysts with high performance under solar light is a fundamental goal of many researchers. This paper proposes a one-step sustainable procedure to simultaneously synthesize and photosensitize SnO2 NPs using natural dyes, ensuring a good performance under solar radiation. Characterization through TGA, FTIR, UV-vis, XRD, and TEM confirms the effect of the extracts on the one-step synthesis and photosensitization of the NPs. Finally, the photocatalytic activity of the photosensitized SnO2 showed a significant improvement in comparison to unsensitized SnO2, i.e., while unsensitized SnO2 degraded 11% of an organic pollutant, the sensitized SnO2 achieved up to 97% degradation after 120 min of exposure to sunlight.