Improved ethanol sensing and photocatalytic Rhodamine B dye degradation of Ni-SnO2 nanoparticles

Ni-SnO2 nanoparticles are prepared by hydrothermal method. The size of SnO2 nanoparticles decreases from 31 to 15 nm with nickel doping. Other than particle size change, Ni doping has no effect on the morphology of SnO2 nanoparticles. Ni-SnO2 nanoparticles exhibit tetragonal rutile structure and smaller crystallite size. FTIR peak sizes and positions of SnO2 nanoparticles are somewhat altered by nickel doping. The band gap energy of SnO2 reduces significantly after Ni doping. Especially 4% Ni doping into SnO2 is considered to be the best and opti-mum percentage for achieving low band gap energy. Ni doping reduces the charge carrier's recombination rate of SnO2 nanoparticles substantially. Gas sensing and photocatalytic degradation of Ni-SnO2 were analysed for ethanol and Rhodamine B respectively. The ethanol sensing of Ni-SnO2 nanoparticles is 2 times greater than that of pure SnO2 nanoparticles. Ni-SnO2 nanoparticles have an 8-fold higher photocatalytic activity than pure SnO2 nanoparticles.