Room temperature xylene sensor based on Co3O4/GF hybrid

Abstract

Sensitive Xylene solid-state gas sensor based graphene foam decorated with cobalt oxide has been successfully fabricated via a simple impregnation method. The structure and surface morphological analysis carried out using multiple techniques including XRD, SEM, Raman, TGA, BET, and BJH. The morphological examination using SEM confirmed that spherical CO3O4 particles fully covered both the outer surface and interior pores of GF. Raman analysis confirmed that both characteristic bands for carbon nanomaterials are absent. The specific surface area was estimated using the BET method to be 543.254 m²/g which is a relatively high value. The prepared sensors showed a good response towards xylene. Moreover, we examine the sensitivity of the CO3O4/GF sensor to detect other volatile organic compounds, such as methanol, ethanol, toluene, and heptane, demonstrating that the CO3O4/GF sensor exhibits excellent sensitivity to xylene (detection limit = 0.5 ppm) at room temperature.