Fabrication and characterization of sintered SnO2 pellet for ethanol oxidation

• Main Author: Lim, Rodney Luo Shen
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/60944
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The research was done to obtain information on the fabrication and characteristics of SnO2 for use as an electrocatalyst. Tin oxide macro particle and nanoparticle powder were utilized to prepare cylindrical electrocatalyst pellets of 0.3g and 0.5g for characterization. The effects of sintering temperatures ranging from 200 °C to 1200 °C on pellet characteristics are investigated via X-ray diffraction (crystallinity), scanning electron microscope (surface morphology) and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analyzer (porosity/surface area). Results obtained show that crystallinity increased with increased sintering temperatures, surface morphology changed and surface area was altered for the different samples. Nanoparticle SnO2 sintered at 600 °C was found to possess ideal characteristics; from the SEM results, it showed the most grain size and distribution from observation of surface morphology. Further studies using BET analyzer confirmed that it had the highest porosity and an even pore distribution. Pore size of the sample was the largest at 8nm and from the BET graph, the pores were deduced to be cylindrical in shape and open-ended. Perimeters for fabricating SnO2 electrocatalyst have been determined, and the perimeters can be altered to obtain required specific surface area, pore size, pore density or shape.