SnO2 Nanowire/MoS2 Nanosheet Composite Gas Sensor in Self-Heating Mode for Selective and ppb-Level Detection of NO2 Gas

Abstract

The development of low-cost and low-power gas sensors for reliable NO2 gas detection is important due to the highly toxic nature of NO2 gas. Herein, initially, SnO2 nanowires (NWs) were synthesized through a simple vapor–liquid–solid growth mechanism. Subsequently, different amounts of SnO2 NWs were composited with MoS2 nanosheets (NSs) to fabricate SnO2 NWs/MoS2 NS nanocomposite gas sensors for NO2 gas sensing. The operation of the sensors in self-heating mode at 1–3.5 V showed that the sensor with 20 wt.% SnO2 (SM-20 nanocomposite) had the highest response of 13 to 1000 ppb NO2 under 3.2 V applied voltage. Furthermore, the SM-20 nanocomposite gas sensor exhibited high selectivity and excellent long-term stability. The enhanced NO2 gas response was ascribed to the formation of n-n heterojunctions between SnO2 NWs and MoS2, high surface area, and the presence of some voids in the SM-20 composite gas sensor due to having different morphologies of SnO2 NWs and MoS2 NSs. It is believed that the present strategy combining MoS2 and SnO2 with different morphologies and different sensing properties is a good approach to realize high-performance NO2 gas sensors with merits such as simple synthesis and fabrication procedures, low cost, and low power consumption, which are currently in demand in the gas sensor market.