Impact of reactive precursors on the sintering of tin monoxide

The thermodynamic stability limits of Sn(II) under ambient conditions imposes constraints on the densification of divalent tin based oxides. In the case of tin monoxide (SnO), a low temperature (≤ 300 °C) electric field assisted processing route (Cool-SPS) affords densification up to 90% of theoretical density. This is demonstrated for both conventional SnO and reactive tin(II) oxyhydroxide [Sn6O4(OH)4] precursor powders. The choice of starting precursor impacts both the optimized processing parameters and the resulting ceramic microstructure. Characterization of phase content and stability has been performed on both the precursor powders and resulting ceramics. Preliminary electrochemical property measurements are presented and their connection to observed microstructure and choice of initial precursor is discussed.