As for both industrial manufacturing and environment monitoring, it is becoming increasingly urgent and significant to develop gas environment detection, in which gas sensor that is based on catalytically-sensing mechanism is considered as the most important device.

Recently, associate professor LIU Jinyun and Prof. MENG Fanli from Prof. LIU Jinhuai and Prof. HUANG Xingjiu’s group in Institute of Intelligent Machines, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences were invited to jointly publish a review on catalytic sensitive electronic devices in journal Catalysts  with title Catalysis-Based Cataluminescent and Conductometric Gas Sensors: Sensing Nanomaterials, Mechanism, Applications and Perspectives, which systematically summarized mechanism of sensing detection, applications of sensing nanomaterials, and the research direction and application prospect of the catalytic mechanism-based gas sensors.

The review emphatically introduces two representative catalysis-based gas sensors including cataluminescent and conductometric sensors which are on the basis of optical and electric signal acquisitions, respectively.

Grounded on the global research frontiers, the application of cataluminescent gas sensors for detecting different gases (such as volatile organic compounds, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, etc.), the catalysis effect by noble metal modification and the small size effect of conductometric sensors are discussed thoroughly.

As for research direction of sensors in the future, the review points out sensitive and selective sensing nanomaterials are highly demanded in the fields of both academy and industry.

And compared to single-component sensing materials, the doped or cooperated composites commonly show an enhanced sensing performance, which suggests that fabricating composites (such as graphene hybrid) will be a research direction with great potential.

Besides, as for detection system, catalysis-based sensor array, such as electronic nose, enjoys clear advantage to effectively recognize multi-component gases, which could be considered as a main direction to develop system integration.

This work was supported by the State Key Basic Science Program for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, and the Natural Science Foundation of China.

Figure 1. Sensing mechanism of cataluminescence-based gas sensor. (Image by Image by LIU Jinyun ) 

Figure 2. Illustration for the formation mechanism of SnO₂/graphene composites. (Image by LIU Jinyun)