Abstract
Abstract In this work, we report a facile synthesis of ZnO loaded mesoporous silica nanocomposite for detecting relative humidity (RH) at room temperature. ZnO was loaded into mesoporous silica using ex situ and in situ loading processes. Response of the nanocomposite sensors synthesized using different loading process were investigated by exposing them to humid environments in wide range of 11–98%RH at 25 °C. The sensor utilizing in situ loading process exhibits a ∼5 orders impedance change along with excellent linearity, quick response time, rapid recovery time, negligible hysteresis, good repeatability and stability. AC nyquist plots of the sensor at different RHs were analyzed to understand the humidity-sensing mechanism. Our study can open a new way for realizing ZnO–SiO 2 hybrid nanocomposite for fabrication of high performance RH sensors.
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