Abstract
Highly sensitive, and versatile metal oxide semiconductors, including perovskites, are used in gas sensors for environmental, and safety applications. This study described the substitution of Cu for Fe in LaFe1-xCuxO3 nanostructured perovskites, denoted as Cx’s, using Pechini sol-gel method at 600 °C, to detect the volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Characterization techniques, including TGA/DTA, XRD, BET, FE-SEM/EDS, Raman, PL, XPS, UV-DRS, FTIR, TPD-O2 and ethanol chemisorption showed significant enhancements in physicochemical, and gas sensing properties of LaFeO3 perovskites, upon copper doping in its structure. The responses to ethanol improved, the average crystallite and nanoparticle sizes decreased, and the electrical conductivity increased as the perovskite copper content increased to x = 0.6. The crystallite size of 20.5 nm for LaFeO3 decreased to 12.7 nm for LaFe0.4Cu0.6O3. The SC0.6 thick film gas sensor showed high potential in the VOCs detection, with best responses of 17 for ethanol, 18 for acetone, and 16 for acetaldehyde when exposed to each of 300 ppm at 300 °C. At these conditions, the response and recovery times of highly stable SC0.6 sensor for ethanol gas were 4 and 11 min, respectively.
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