NiO@ZnO Heterostructured Nanotubes: Coelectrospinning Fabrication, Characterization, and Highly Enhanced Gas Sensing Properties

Abstract

Novel NiO@ZnO heterostructured nanotubes (NTs) were fabricated by the coelectrospinning method, consisting of external hexagonal ZnO shell and internal cubic NiO NTs. They are carefully investigated by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, scanning transmission electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy mapping, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy techniques. A reasonable formation mechanism of the hierarchical NiO@ZnO NTs is proposed, which is discussed from the view of degradation temperature of different polymers and the amount of inorganic salts. They were then explored for fabrication of H(2)S gas sensors. The gas sensing test reveals that compared with the pure ZnO, NiO, and the ZnO-NiO mixed gas sensors, hierarchical gas sensor exhibits highly improved sensing performances to dilute hydrogen sulfide (H(2)S) gas. The response of the optimum NiO@ZnO NTs sensor to 50 ppm H(2)S increases as high as 2.7-23.7 times compared to the other sensors, whereas the response and recovery times also become shorter considerably. These enhanced gas sensing properties are closely related to the change of nanostructure and activity of ZnO and NiO nanocrystals as well as combination of homo- and heterointerfaces in the optimum gas sensor, which are confirmed by a series of well-designed experiments.