Graphene Oxide Regulated Tin Oxide Nanostructures: Engineering Composition, Morphology, Band Structure, and Photocatalytic Properties.

A facile, one-step hydrothermal method has been developed to fabricate tin oxide-reduced graphene oxide (Sn-RGO) nanocomposites with tunable composition, morphology, and energy band structure by utilizing graphene oxide (GO) as a multifunctional two-dimensional scaffold. By adjusting the GO concentration during synthesis, a variety of tin oxide nanomaterials with diverse composition and morphology are obtained. Simultaneously, the varying of GO concentration can also narrow the bandgap and tune the band edge positions of the Sn-RGO nanocomposites. As a result, the Sn-RGO nanocomposites with controllable composition, morphology, and energy band structure are obtained, which exhibit efficient photoactivities toward methyl orange (MO) degradation under visible-light irradiation. It is expected that our work would point to the new possibility of using GO for directing synthesis of semiconductor nanomaterials with tailored structure and physicochemical properties.