One-Dimensional Zinc Oxide Decorated Cobalt Oxide Nanospheres for Enhanced Gas-Sensing Properties

• Main Authors: Hang Zhou, Keng Xu, Yong Yang, Ting Yu, Cailei Yuan, Wenyan Wei, Yue Sun, Wenhui Lu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-12-01
• Series: Frontiers in Chemistry
• Subjects: gas sensing; transducer function; receptor function; ethanol detection; single-crystalline
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fchem.2018.00628/full

In this study, one-dimensional (1D) zinc oxide was loaded on the surface of cobalt oxide microspheres, which were assembled by single-crystalline porous nanosheets, via a simple heteroepitaxial growth process. This elaborate structure possessed an excellent transducer function from the single-crystalline feature of Co3O4 nanosheets and the receptor function from the zinc oxide nanorods. The structure of the as-prepared hybrid was confirmed via a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM). Gas-sensing tests showed that the gas-sensing properties of the as-designed hybrid were largely improved. The response was about 161 (Ra/Rg) to 100 ppm ethanol, which is 110 and 10 times higher than that of Co3O4 (Rg/Ra = 1.47) and ZnO (Ra/Rg = 15), respectively. And the as-designed ZnO/Co3O4 hybrid also showed a high selectivity to ethanol. The superior gas-sensing properties were mainly attributed to the as-designed nanostructures that contained a super transducer function and a super receptor function. The design strategy for gas-sensing materials in this work shed a new light on the exploration of high-performance gas sensors.