Nucleation density and pore size tunable growth of ZnO nanowalls by a facile solution approach: growth mechanism and NO2 gas sensing properties

Investigation of High-Sensitivity NO2 Gas Sensors with Ga2O3 Nanorod Sensing Membrane Grown by Hydrothermal Synthesis Method

In this work, Ga₂O₃ nanorods were converted from GaOOH nanorods grown using the hydrothermal synthesis method as the sensing membranes of NO₂ gas sensors. Since a sensing membrane with a high surface-to-volume ratio is a very important issue for gas sensors, the thickness of the seed layer and the concentrations of the hydrothermal precursor gallium nitrate nonahydrate (Ga(NO₃)₃·9H₂O) and hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) were optimized to achieve a high surface-to-volume ratio in the GaOOH nanorods. The results showed that the largest surface-to-volume ratio of the GaOOH nanorods could be obtained using the 50-nm-thick SnO₂ seed layer and the Ga(NO₃)₃·9H₂O/HMT concentration of 12 mM/10 mM. In addition, the GaOOH nanorods were converted to Ga₂O₃ nanorods by thermal annealing in a pure N₂ ambient atmosphere for 2 h at various temperatures of 300 °C, 400 °C, and 500 °C, respectively. Compared with the Ga₂O₃ nanorod sensing membranes annealed at 300 °C and 500 °C, the NO₂ gas sensors using the 400 °C-annealed Ga₂O₃ nanorod sensing membrane exhibited optimal responsivity of 1184.6%, a response time of 63.6 s, and a recovery time of 135.7 s at a NO₂ concentration of 10 ppm. The low NO₂ concentration of 100 ppb could be detected by the Ga₂O₃ nanorod-structured NO₂ gas sensors and the achieved responsivity was 34.2%.

Hollow ZnO nanorices prepared by a simple hydrothermal method for NO2 and SO2 gas sensors

Chemoresistive gas sensors play an important role in detecting toxic gases for air pollution monitoring. However, the demand for suitable nanostructures that could process high sensing performance remains high. In this study, hollow ZnO nanorices were synthesized by a simple hydrothermal method to detect NO₂ and SO₂ toxic gases efficiently. Material characterization by some advanced techniques, such as scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy, demonstrated that the hollow ZnO nanorices had a length and diameter size of less than 500 and 160 nm, respectively. In addition, they had a thin shell thickness of less than 30 nm, formed by an assembly of tiny nanoparticles. The sensor based on the hollow ZnO nanorices could detect low concentration of NO₂ and SO₂ gasses at sub-ppm level. At an optimum operating temperature of 200 °C, the sensor had response values of approximately 15.3 and 4.8 for 1 ppm NO₂ and 1 ppm SO₂, respectively. The sensor also exhibited good stability and selectivity, suggesting that the sensor can be applied to NO₂ and SO₂ toxic gas detection in ambient air.

Hollow ZnO nanorices with an ultrathin shell show excellent response to NO₂ and SO₂ gases.