One pot hydrothermal synthesis of ordered mesoporous SnO2/SBA-16 nanocomposites

In this work, we report a co-surfactant assisted one step synthesis of nanocomposite via direct amalgamation of SnO2 into the cubic mesoporous scaffold of SBA-16 by a facile hydrothermal method. High resolution TEM images validated that co-precipitation of both tin and silica species leads to homogeneous allocation of tin oxide nanoparticles in the scaffold of SBA-16. Gradual decrease in high surface area accompanied by loading of tin oxide in 3D-cubic channels of SBA-16 is scrutinized by N-2 sorption isotherms and the untainted cubic mesoporous nature shows that the inclusion of tin oxide does not disintegrate the 3D-cubic channels of SBA-16 which is further confirmed by X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and infrared absorption spectra. Finally, this method has been generalized to prepare mesoporous nanocomposites containing SnO2/SBA-16.