Facile synthesis of bamboo raft-like Co3O4 with enhanced acetone gas sensing performances

Abstract

The designed synthesis of bamboo raft-like Co3O4 has been achieved by a facile one-step room temperature solution process followed by subsequent annealing. The morphology and structure characterizations from SEM, TEM and XRD indicate that numerous Co3O4 granular chains are orderly assembled in a planar connection way to construct bamboo raft-like architectures. To demonstrate the potential application, the as-prepared bamboo raft-like Co3O4 is employed and developed for acetone gas detection. In comparison with Co3O4 micro/nanospheres, bamboo raft-like Co3O4 not only exhibits almost three times higher sensitivity, but also shows faster response and recovery speed (shorten by 58 s and 17 s, respectively) towards 200 ppm acetone gas. Importantly, bamboo raft-like Co3O4 possesses advantages of lower operating temperature and better reversibility. Such impressive features are mainly attributed to the contact pattern of internal nanoparticles and planar bamboo raft-like architectures, which provide more exposed surface areas for gas adsorption and surface chemical reaction and larger contact width between nanoparticles for conduction, thus exhibiting a higher acetone gas sensing performance. The bamboo raft-like architecture provides a solid evidence to clarify the contribution of the assembly pattern of building blocks to gas sensing behaviors.