Porous spheres-like ZnO nanostructure as sensitive gas sensors for acetone detection

• DOI: 10.1016/j.matlet.2013.02.117
• Publication Date: 2013-03-14T01:05:03Z
• Authors: X.B. Li; S.Y. Ma; F.M. Li; Y. Chen; Q.Q. Zhang; X.H. Yang; C.Y. Wang; J. Zhu
• Keywords: Electrospinning

Abstract Porous spheres-like zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructure was synthesized by electrospinning method followed by calcining. The microstructure and chemical composition were investigated with X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Brunauer–Emmet–Teller method and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The results showed that the porous spheres-like ZnO nanostructure with large specific surface area (22.6 m 2 /g) was composed of ZnO nanoparticles of ∼40–80 nm grain size and numerous oxygen species (O − and O 2− ) were adsorbed on the surface of ZnO nanoparticles. Meanwhile, the testing on gas sensing performance revealed that porous spheres-like ZnO nanostructure based sensor has an optimum operating temperature of 310 °C, large resistance (1064 kΩ), good stability for low concentration acetone (2 ppm acetone at 310 °C) and good selectivity at 310 °C for acetone.