Abstract

In the last decades, nanomaterials have emerged as multifunctional building blocks for the development of next generation sensing technologies for a wide range of industrial sectors including the food industry, environment monitoring, public security, and agricultural production. The use of advanced nanosensing technologies, particularly nanostructured metal-oxide gas sensors, is a promising technique for monitoring low concentrations of gases in complex gas mixtures. However, their poor conductivity and lack of selectivity at room temperature are key barriers to their practical implementation in real world applications. Here, we provide a review of the fundamental mechanisms that have been successfully implemented for reducing the operating temperature of nanostructured materials for low and room temperature gas sensing. The latest advances in the design of efficient architecture for the fabrication of highly performing nanostructured gas sensing technologies for environmental and health monitoring is reviewed in detail. This review is concluded by summarizing achievements and standing challenges with the aim to provide directions for future research in the design and development of low and room temperature nanostructured gas sensing technologies.

Highlights

  • From smog hanging over cities to smoke inside the home, air pollution poses a major threat to both climate and health

  • Among gases that cause the most air pollution, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions are amongst the biggest environmental problems today [4]

  • We conclude with a review of issues that need to be overcome to enable the engineering of the generation of miniaturized low-temperature nanostructured gas sensors for air quality, environmental monitoring, health, and medical applications

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Summary

Introduction

From smog hanging over cities to smoke inside the home, air pollution poses a major threat to both climate and health Poisonous gases, such as NO2 , SO2 , and CO2 etc. The use of advanced nanostructured sensing materials is one of the promising detection techniques for monitoring low concentrations of VOCs in a complex gas mixture, for air quality, environmental monitoring [14], health, and medical applications [15]. We focus on the impact of the nanoscale material hierarchy, discussing the similarities and differences across nanomaterials, the nanostructured morphologies as well as sensing mechanisms for low temperature detection of VOC gases in different sensing environments. We conclude with a review of issues that need to be overcome to enable the engineering of the generation of miniaturized low-temperature nanostructured gas sensors for air quality, environmental monitoring, health, and medical applications

Air Quality and Environmental Monitoring
Health and Medical Monitoring
Summary and Outlook
Findings
Methods
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