Noble metal/metal-oxide-based hybrid gas sensors exhibit a remarkable sensitivity, low operating temperature and fast recovery. As additives, noble metals induce a catalytic sensitization effect, it is so-called spillover mechanism. It is promoting charge transfer from the metal oxide to the analyte molecules. This proposes that metal catalysts can improve gas detection performance. Here, for the first time, non-precious metals are introduced into hybrid metal oxide/graphene fibers as sensitizers for the fabrication of high-performance chemiresistor sensors. The formation of metal constituents can be effectively controlled by annealing the metal oxides on graphene. Extraordinarily, the metal/metal oxide/graphene fibers exhibited a 16 times higher response to NO2 gas and recovery than metal oxide/graphene fiber without metal. Concretely, the Cu/Cu2O/Graphene and Ni/NiO/graphene fiber sensors exhibited reversible sensing properties with sensitivities of 18.90 % and 0.82 %, respectively, for 5 ppm NO2. The proposed strategy to achieve flexible graphene fiber chemiresistor by decorating them with non-noble metal and metal oxide nanoparticles opens a new avenue for realizing high-performance devices, such as photovoltaic devices, photocatalysts, and chemical catalysts.

Metal/metal oxide decorated graphene fiber for highly NO2 sensing performance

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.