Heat treatment effect on crystal structure and design of highly sensitive room temperature CO2 gas sensors using anodic Bi2O3 nanoporous formed in a citric acid electrolyte

Abstract

The effect of annealing temperature on the crystal structure of anodic bismuth trioxide (ABO) layers prepared via anodization in a citric acid-based electrolyte was studied. The samples were annealed in air at temperatures ranging from 200 °C to 600 °C. Characterization of nanoporous ABO layers was carried out through x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), UV–visible (UV–Vis) diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL). Effects of heat treatment on crystallinity, morphology and gas-sensing properties were investigated in detail. The XRD measurements showed that a gradual phase change from beta to gamma occurs with an increase in annealing temperature. The beta to gamma transformation occurred between 500 and 600 °C. The changes in the average crystallite sizes of beta and gamma occurring during heat treatment of the ABO layers are correlated with the mechanism of gamma-phase nucleation. During the growth of the gamma phase, the grain size gets enlarged with a reduction in the total area of grain boundary. The pores’ formation and the pore diameter of both anodized and annealed samples were found to be in the range of 50 to 150 nm. The band gap of the ABO layer crystallines was determined using the diffuse reflectance technique according to the Kubelka–Munk theory. Results showed that the band gap of the ABO layer decreased from 4.09 to 2.42 eV when the particle size decreased from 58 to 24 nm. The CO2 sensing properties of the ABO were investigated at room temperature for 0–100 ppm concentration. The variations in the electrical resistances were measured with the exposure of CO2 as a function of time. The maximum value of the response magnitude of 77% was obtained for 100 ppm of CO2. These experimental results show that the ABO layer of nanoporous is a promising material for CO2 sensors at room temperature.