Interfacial energy barrier tuning of hierarchical Bi2O3/WO3 heterojunctions for advanced triethylamine sensor
Mingxin Zhang, Kai Liu, Xingmin Zhang, Bingbing Wang, Xinru Xu, Xinxin Du, Chao Yang, Kewei Zhang
Abstract
Abstract Traditional triethylamine (TEA) sensors suffer from the drawback of serious cross-sensitivity due to the low charge-transfer ability of gas-sensing materials. Herein, an advanced anti-interference TEA sensor is designed by utilizing interfacial energy barriers of hierarchical Bi 2 O 3 /WO 3 composite. Benefiting from abundant slit-like pores, desirable defect features, and amplification effect of heterojunctions, the sensor based on Bi 2 O 3 /WO 3 composite with 40% Bi 2 O 3 (0.4-Bi 2 O 3 /WO 3 ) demonstrates remarkable performance in terms of faster response/recovery time (1.7-fold/1.2-fold), higher response (2.1-fold), and lower power consumption (30 °C-decrement) as compared with the pristine WO 3 sensor. Furthermore, the composite sensor exhibits long-term stability, reproducibility, and negligible response towards interfering molecules, indicating the promising potential of Bi 2 O 3 /WO 3 heterojunctions in anti-interference detection of low-concentration TEA in real applications. This work not only offers a rational solution to design advanced gas sensors by tuning the interfacial energy barriers of heterojunctions, but also provides a fundamental understanding of hierarchical Bi 2 O 3 structures in the gas-sensing field.