Polycrystalline SnO₂ Nanotubes Prepared via Infiltration Casting of Nanocrystallites and Their Electrochemical Application

Abstract

In this work we demonstrated that uniform polycrystalline SnO 2 nanotubes, in either array or free-standing form, can be fabricated by an infiltration technique using SnO 2 nanoparticles as starting building units. With this method, the diameter, length, thickness, and texture of the nanotubes can be further controlled. The tubular SnO 2 shows a significant improvement of electrochemical performance over the unorganized nanoparticles. The specific capacity of the Sn-based nanotube electrode was 525 mAh/g after 80 cycles. In principle, the tubular structure of active component can also be extended to other metal oxides and Li−metal alloy systems. In view of their unique features, the prepared SnO 2 nanotubes may also find interesting applications in other fields such as gas sensing.