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Nanostructured of SnO2/NiO composite as a highly selective formaldehyde gas sensor

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Abstract

To detect low concentrations of formaldehyde selectively, the sensing properties of SnO2 nanostructured are enhanced by modifying with p-type semiconductor NiO. In this study, a nanostructured SnO2/NiO composite was prepared by a simple hydrothermal method. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) peak in 532.4 eV proved that the existence of the SnO2/NiO composite structure increased the amount of adsorbed oxygen O− and O2− significantly. Gas-sensing tests showed that these mixed phases SnO2/NiO are highly promising for gas sensor applications, as the gas response for formaldehyde was significantly enhanced in gas response, selectivity at an operating temperature of 230 °C. The sensor fabricated by SnO2/NiO composite can detect as low as 1 ppm of formaldehyde at 230 °C, and the corresponding response is 1.57. The results of physicochemical properties tests of the samples show that the enhancement in sensitivity and selectivity is attributed to the oxygen vacancies and heterojunction between SnO2 and NiO. The SnO2/NiO composites can be applied to sensitive materials of formaldehyde sensors.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFA0202200), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21677095), Program of Shanghai Academic/Technology Research Leader (No. 18XD1422400), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2018M642021).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Lei Xu, Meiying Ge & Dannong He

  2. National Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology, Shanghai, 200241, China

    Fang Zhang & Haijun Huang

  3. National Laboratory for Infrared Physics, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200083, China

    Yan Sun

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  1. Lei Xu
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  2. Meiying Ge
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Correspondence to Meiying Ge.

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Xu, L., Ge, M., Zhang, F. et al. Nanostructured of SnO2/NiO composite as a highly selective formaldehyde gas sensor. Journal of Materials Research 35, 3079–3090 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2020.239

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