Ultrasensitive Gas Sensors Based on Electrospun TiO2 and ZnO †

Ambra Fioravanti,Maria Cristina Carotta,Mauro Mazzocchi,Sara Morandi,Alberto Rubin Pedrazzo,Pierangiola Bracco,Marco Zanetti,Maela Manzoli

doi:10.3390//proceedings1040485

Abstract

New sensors for detecting gases at low concentration were successfully developed. Two metal oxide materials, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, usually employed both in gas sensing as well as in photocatalytic application, were synthesized both through a traditional sol-gel method and an electrospinning technique. The corresponding thick films were considered with respect to the target gases (acetone for ZnO and carbon monoxide for TiO2) for comparing their functional properties.

Highlights

The demand of real time, low cost and small size sensors is continuously increasing to control a large variety of parameters such as environmental, food quality, biomedical, etc
Ti (IV) n-butoxide was dissolved in absolute ethanol (0.23 M) and added to a solution of ethanol/water 1:1 vol For ZnO, a proper amount of ammonium hydroxide was added to a water solution 0.05 M of Zn(NO3)2·6H2O to reach a pH of 10 and ageing the solution at RT for 1 h
X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed a hexagonal wurtzite structure for ES and SG-ZnO and anatase phase for ES and SG-TiO2 calcined at 450 °C. Both anatase and rutile phase are present calcining at 650 °C

Summary

Introduction

The demand of real time, low cost and small size sensors is continuously increasing to control a large variety of parameters such as environmental, food quality, biomedical, etc. In the context of gas sensors, great advantages have been achieved through an extensive investigation on the semiconductor metal oxides (MOX) benefiting from progresses in nano-technology, recently occurred. TiO2 and ZnO have been selected because they have been widely investigated in solar cells, photocatalysts and gas sensors [1]. TiO2 and ZnO can be obtained in form of nanostructures via physical or chemical processes in different morphologies. Among these techniques, electrospinning and sol-gel methods have been adopted to compare their morphological, structural, optical and functional properties

Objectives

Methods

Results