Nickel nanoparticle-decorated reduced graphene oxide/WO3 nanocomposite - a promising candidate for gas sensing

Ilka Simon; Alexandr Savitsky; Rolf Mülhaupt; Vladimir Pankov; Christoph Janiak

doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.28

Nickel nanoparticle-decorated reduced graphene oxide/WO₃ nanocomposite - a promising candidate for gas sensing

Beilstein J Nanotechnol. 2021 Apr 15:12:343-353. doi: 10.3762/bjnano.12.28. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Ilka Simon¹, Alexandr Savitsky², Rolf Mülhaupt³, Vladimir Pankov², Christoph Janiak¹

Affiliations

¹ Institut für Anorganische Chemie und Strukturchemie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 40204 Düsseldorf, Germany.
² Chemical Faculty, Belarusian State University, Leningradskaya str. 14, 220050 Minsk, Belarus.
³ Freiburg Materials Research Center and Institute for Macromolecular Chemistry, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, 79104 Freiburg, Germany.

Abstract

We report for the first time the combination of WO₃ sensing elements with a non-noble metal-carbon composite, namely a nickel metal nanoparticle-carbon composite (Ni@rGO). Previous work with WO₃ had used either NiO (as part of the WO₃ lattice), solely carbon, Pd-surface decorated WO₃ (Pd@WO₃), or Pd or Pt@carbon@WO₃. We demonstrate the gas response for pure WO₃, rGO/WO₃ and Ni@rGO/WO₃ sensing elements towards NO₂ and acetone in air as well as towards CO in N₂. The addition of 0.35 wt % Ni@rGO composite to WO₃ enables the increase of the sensory response by more than 1.6 times for NO₂ vapors. The gas response towards acetone using 0.35 wt % Ni@rGO/WO₃ composite was 1.5 times greater for 3500 ppm than for 35,000 ppm acetone. For 0.35 wt % Ni@rGO/WO₃ composite and CO gas, a response time (T _res) of 7 min and a recovery time (T _rec) of 2 min was determined.

Keywords: gas sensing; magnetic measurements; nickel nanoparticles; reduced graphene oxide; tungsten oxide.

Grants and funding

Authors are thankful to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for financial support within the priority project SPP 1708 “Material Synthesis Near Room Temperature” through grant Ja466/31-1, Ja466/31-2. We thank the Ernst Ruska-Centre (Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany) for access to the TEM facility under project number ER-C D-066 and in the core-facilities program through grant MA 1280/40-1. We are thankful to the Belarusian Republican Foundation for Fundamental Research for financial support (BRFFR).