Improved triethylamine sensing properties of fish-scale-like porous SnO2 nanosheets by decorating with Ag nanoparticles
Jingyi Zhang, Bowen Zhang, Shujuan Yao, Hongyuan Li, Can Chen, Hari Bala, Zhanying Zhang
Abstract
Three dimensional (3D) porous nanostructures assembled by low-dimensional nanomaterials are widely applied in gas sensor according to porous structure which can facilitate the transport of gas molecules. In this work, fish-scale-like porous SnO2 nanomaterials assembled from ultrathin nanosheets with thickness of 16.8 nm were synthesized by a facile hydrothermal route. Then Ag nanoparticles were decorated on the surface of SnO2 nanosheets via one-step method to improve their gas-sensing performances. The sensing properties of pristine SnO2 and Ag/SnO2 nanosheets were investigated intensively. After decorating with Ag nanoparticles, the characteristics of SnO2 based sensor for triethylamine detection were significantly improved. Especially, the Ag/SnO2 based sensor with Ag content of 2 at% exhibited the highest triethylamine sensing sensitivity at optimum work temperature of 170 °C. The improved sensing properties of Ag/SnO2 sensors were attributed to the sensitizing actions of Ag nanoparticles as well as the unique hierarchical porous architecture.