Interface engineering of ZnSnO <sub>3</sub> ‐based heterojunctions for room‐temperature methanol monitoring
Jinyong Xu, Kaichun Xu, Xiaoxi He, Hanlin Liao, Marc Debliquy, Qiaoquan Liu, Chao Zhang
Abstract
Abstract Detecting methanol is of great importance in the organic synthesis industry. Herein, the effective utilization of ZnSnO 3 ‐based microstructures for room‐temperature methanol monitoring was realized through a template‐free approach. ZnSnO 3 ‐based heterojunctions with different structures and morphologies were successfully synthesized via regulating the molar ratio of Zn 2+ and Sn 4+ sources. And room‐temperature sensing properties towards methanol were investigated. Among them, ZnO/ZnSnO 3 hollow microcubes exhibited an outstanding sensing performance including a high sensitivity (10.16) and a response/recovery time (14/75 s) and a limit of detection (490 × 10 –9 ) towards 5 × 10 –6 methanol. Additionally, the synergistic effects of hollow structure with larger specific surface areas (42.277 m 2 ·g −1 ), the construction of n–n heterojunctions formed at ZnSnO 3 and ZnO interfaces, the high percentage of dissociative and chemisorbed oxygen are the main causes of the elevated sensing characteristics. Besides, the practical experiment demonstrated that ZnO/ZnSnO 3 was capable of on‐field monitoring methanol in the chemical reaction utilizing H 2 and CO 2 as raw materials. Moreover, with the help of density functional theory calculations, the enhanced sensing properties of ZnO/ZnSnO 3 are due to the special tuning effects of Zn ionic sites on methanol adsorption.