Graphene oxide (GO)-doping SnO2 flower-like structure to enhance photocatalytic activity

The GO/SnO2 micronanostructure was synthesized by a simple and effective hydrothermal method. The combined characterization methods such as Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Element mapping, Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), the Raman spectroscopy, the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), photoluminescence (PL) the Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis) and Diffuse reflectance spectrum (DRS) indicated the successful formation of GO/SnO2 micronanostructure. Moreover, the photocatalytic activity tested with RhB aqueous solution revealed that GO/SnO2 had excellent photocatalytic properties compared with SnO2. The photocatalytic efficiency of GO/SnO2 was much higher (about 2.5 times) than that of pure SnO2 under visible light irradiation. Based on these test results, we believe that the present work will provide some thoughts for further fabrication of other novel nanostructures and exploration of their applications.