Abstract
Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanosheets were exfoliated from bulk g-C3N4 and utilized to improve the sensing performance of a pure graphene sensor for the first time. The role of hydrochloric acid treatment on the exfoliation result was carefully examined. The exfoliated products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The exfoliated g-C3N4 nanosheets exhibited a uniform thickness of about 3–5 nm and a lateral size of about 1–2 µm. A g-C3N4/graphene nanocomposite was prepared via a self-assembly process and was demonstrated to be a promising sensing material for detecting nitrogen dioxide gas at room temperature. The nanocomposite sensor exhibited better recovery as well as two-times the response compared to pure graphene sensor. The detailed sensing mechanism was then proposed.
Highlights
Gas sensors are devices that able to respond to specific gasses and they play an important role in industrial chemical processing, environmental monitoring, agriculture, medicine, public safety, and indoor air quality control [1]
We successfully prepared g-C3 N4 nanosheets from bulk g-C3 N4 using a facile HCl acid treatment followed by an ultrasonic process
The exfoliated g-C3 N4 nanosheets exhibited a uniform thickness of about 3–5 nm and a lateral size of about 1–2 μm. g-C3 N4 /graphene nanocomposite was prepared via a self-assembly process
Summary
Gas sensors are devices that able to respond to specific gasses and they play an important role in industrial chemical processing, environmental monitoring, agriculture, medicine, public safety, and indoor air quality control [1]. Most commercial gas sensors have been based on metal oxide semiconductors due to their numerous advantages such as low cost, simplicity in measurements, high sensitivity towards various gases with ease of fabrication, and high compatibility with other processes [2,3,4]. These conventional sensors generally require high working temperatures (200 ◦ C to 500 ◦ C); this degrades the long-term sensing performance and greatly limits their applications, e.g., wearable devices [5,6,7]. Sensors based on graphene compositing with nanoparticles of metals or metal oxides have demonstrated highly sensitive and selective sensing behavior [12,13,14,15], which could be attributed to the excellent catalytic properties and synergistic effects of the partner materials [16,17,18]
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