Gas Sensitive Characteristics of Polyaniline Decorated with Molybdenum Ditelluride Nanosheets

Abstract

In this work, hydrochloric acid (HCl)-doped molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2) nanosheets/polyaniline (PANI) nanofiber composites are prepared by in situ chemical oxidation polymerization, and then the composites are deposited on interdigital electrodes (IDEs) to fabricate a NH3 gas sensor. Morphological analysis of the composites reveals that the PANI fibers are deposited on 2D MoTe2 sheets, showing a porous mesh microstructure structure with a more continuous distribution of PANI layer. FTIR spectrum analysis indicates the interaction between the MoTe2 nanosheets and the PANI in the MoTe2/PANI composites. The results demonstrate that the as-prepared MoTe2/PANI composites exhibit higher response than the pure PANI, in particular, the 8 wt.% MoTe2/PANI composites display about 4.23 times enhancement in response value toward 1000 ppm NH3 gas compared with the pure PANI. The enhanced NH3 gas-sensitive properties may be due to the increasing surface area of MoTe2/PANI composite films and the possible interaction of the P-N heterojunctions formed between PANI and the 2H-MoTe2 nanosheets.