Abstract

Porous SnO2 nanostructures have garnered tremendous attention for detecting volatile organic compounds due to their high surface area, oxygen vacancies, and massive adsorption and diffusion sites for gases. However, the effect of porosity and support on the ethanol-sensing behavior of SnO2 still needs to be clarified. Herein, porous SnO2 nanostructures supported on reduced graphene (SnO2/rGO) were synthesized via the hydrothermal method, followed by annealing at different temperatures under air. The hydrothermal method with annealing at 500 °C endowed the formation of spatial hierarchical porous SnO2 microspheres (HMP-SnO2-500) composed of small nanoflakes, but at 300 °C, aggregated microspheres with less porosity (HMP-SnO2-300) were formed, and hydrothermal alone yielded aggregated flakes on rGO nanosheets (SnO2/rGO). The porosity and crystallinity of SnO2 improved significantly after annealing at 500 °C under air, and the particle size also decreased. Thereby, the ethanol sensing properties of HMP-SnO2-500 were higher than those of HMP-SnO2-300, SnO2/rGO, and SnO2, with a detection limit of 0–3000 ppm, a quick response time of 5–20 s, fast recovery, long-term durability (12 days), and outstanding sensitivity in the presence of different volatile organic materials. This is due to the hierarchical porosity, high surface area, higher electrical conductivity, and synergetic effect of HMP-SnO2-500, which may open new gates for the rational design of self-standing or supported porous SnO2 nanostructures for efficient sensing of organic materials.

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