Hydrothermal preparation and microstructure analysis of silver tin oxide contact materials

After AgSnO₂ powders prepared by hydrothermal method being pressed and sintered, AgSnO₂ contact materials were obtained. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis were used for the AgSnO₂ powders. It is indicated that AgSnO₂ composite powders with finer size and spherical can be prepared by hydrothermal method by means of the co-precipitation of Ag and SnO₂ in aqueous systems. As a result of changing the combination states of silver and tin oxide, the tin oxide crystals show preferred orientation in (110) plate by X-ray diffraction. Microstructure analysis by optical micrograph shows that the AgSnO₂ composite bulks have the microstructure with SnO₂ particles dispersed on the silver matrix equably.