Synthesis and Characteristics of Carbon-Sno2 Composite Aerogel Via Two-Step Self-Assembly Approach

Aerogels with unique hierarchical structure have attracted more and more attention in recent years. Especially, semiconductor aerogel, as one of the representatives, is emerging on account of their controllable binding energy, bandgap, morphology, etc. In this work, a two-step self-assembly strategy of liquid phase was adopted to create supramolecular carbon-mixed SnO2 gel, where glucose was served as carbon source. In addition, the evolution of hybrid carbon-mixed SnO2 aerogels during calcination was also discussed. As carbon-containing structure blocked inside pores gradually grew into flaky carbon or was thermolyzed, previous microporous and mesoporous hierarchical structure was recovered and then Sn-based composite aerogels were generated. As a result, hybrid Sn-based composite aerogels exhibited a higher BET surface area, good electrical conductivity (3 S/cm) and multi-bandgaps structure