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Chinese Researchers Achieve Highly Sensitive and Selective Alcohol Gas Sensor

Jun 25, 2018

N-butanol, a kind of alcohol gas, is widely used in chemical production. However, long-time exposure to it may cause damage to human health with several symptoms, such as headache, dizzy, drowsiness, dermatitis and so on.

Generally, Iron oxide, as a kind of semiconductor, is applied in alcohol gas detection, which yet is defected with low sensitivity and selectivity.

A Chinese study team led by LI Minqiang with Institute of Intelligent Machines, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science prepared comparetively highly sensitive and selective alcohol gas sensors. And their work was published last week in Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical.

The work was developed by nanocomposites that are intermediate state when β-FeOOH converts to α-Fe2O3.

Researchers observed that the intermediate state nanocomposites got optimal gas sensing responses.

And they took a closer look at it through a series of tests and analysises.

The results revealed that the hydroxyl groups increased adsorption probability, and iron oxide facilitated the transport of electrons.

So the hydroxyl groups and α-Fe2O3 jointly make it highly response to n-butanol at an operating temperature of 250 °C.

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

 

Figure a. XRD patterns of β-FeOOH′s products calcined at 200 °C, 250 oC and 350 °C. b. FT-IR spectrum of β-FeOOH and its products calcined at 250 °C and 350 °C. c. Response–recovery curves of nanocomposites of QUAIPH and α-Fe2O3 to 10-100 ppm n-butanol at 250 °C, the illustration is line chart of the response. d.Schematic diagram of the hydroxyl enhancement sensing mechanism of the spindle-shaped α-Fe2O3 composited with QUAIPH. (Image by LI Bo) 

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