Mesoporous semiconducting metal oxides such as tin oxide and zinc oxide, etc. have found many potential applications in the fields of gas sensors, solar cells, and catalysis due to their high active surfaces for sensing. Various mesoporous metal oxide materials have been synthesized based on surfactant templating strategy. However, the process is difficult to control and materials with poor thermal stability are often generated because the metal precursors are highly reactive in the presence of water.[1] Although nanocasting method using mesoporous silica as template has been widely investigated to replicate other mesoporous materials with high stability,[2] this method is not applicable for the synthesis of mesoporous semiconducting metal oxides because of the erosion of metal oxide during the removal of silica template. Recently, highly ordered mesoporous carbons are fabricated via self-assembly, [3] which makes it possible to replicate stable mesoporous semiconducting metal oxides by nanocasting technology. Herein we report the synthesis of mesoporous tin oxide via nanocasting using mesoporous carbon as template. Tin oxide was infiltrated into ordered mesoporous carbon through sol-gel process. The carbon template was then removed by simple calcination at high temperature leading to the formation of mesoporous tin oxide with high stability. The crystallized tin oxide has high porosity and specific surface area, which increases the active sensing surfaces and provides a more efficient gas sensor.

References: [1] J. Y. Ying, C. P. Mehnert, M. S. Wong, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 1999, 38, 56. [2] S. H. Joo, S. J.Choi, I. Oh, J. Kwak, Z. Liu, O. Terasaki, R. Ryoo, Nature, 2001, 412, 169. [3] Y. Meng, D. Gu, F. Zhang, Y. Shi, H. Yang, Z. Li, C. Yu, B. Tu, D. Zhao, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2005, 44, 7053.