Highly sensitive formaldehyde gas sensors based on Y-doped SnO2 hierarchical flower-shaped nanostructures

Abstract

In this work, we have successfully prepared Y-doped SnO2 hierarchical flower-like nanostructures through a facile one-step hydrothermal method for the purpose of improving the formaldehyde gas sensing performance of conventional SnO2 semiconductor nanomaterials. The products were characterized by diverse techniques, which revealed that trivalent Y cations have been introduced into the crystal lattice of SnO2 and they exhibited lots of regular flower-like nanostructures consisting of several layers of rough and porous flakes. At an optimal working temperature of 180 °C, the fabricated gas sensor based on Y-doped SnO2 shown much better gas sensing properties to formaldehyde compared with SnO2 due to the combination of this distinctive three-dimensional hierarchical flower-like nanostructures and doping of Y ions. In particular, the detectable formaldehyde minimum limit has been reduced to 1 ppm. Consequently, Y-doped SnO2 hierarchical flower-like nanostructures are expected to become ideal gas sensing materials of highly sensitive gas sensors for formaldehyde detection due to their excellent gas sensing performance.