Fabrication of noble metal (Au, Ag, Pt)/polythiophene/reduced graphene oxide ternary nanocomposites for NH3 gas sensing at room temperature

Pi-Guey Su; Meng-Shian Tsai; Chia-Jung Lu

doi:10.1039/d2ay01317g

Fabrication of noble metal (Au, Ag, Pt)/polythiophene/reduced graphene oxide ternary nanocomposites for NH₃ gas sensing at room temperature

Anal Methods. 2022 Oct 27;14(41):4113-4121. doi: 10.1039/d2ay01317g.

Authors

Pi-Guey Su¹, Meng-Shian Tsai², Chia-Jung Lu²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Chinese Culture University, Taipei 111, Taiwan. spg@ulive.pccu.edu.tw.
² Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 116, Taiwan.

PMID: 36214083
DOI: 10.1039/d2ay01317g

Abstract

Room temperature NH₃ gas sensors composed of noble metal (Au, Ag or Pt)/polythiophene/reduced graphene oxide (Au, Ag or Pt/PTh/rGO) ternary nanocomposite films were fabricated using a simple one-pot redox reaction. The surface morphology and composition of Au, Ag or Pt/PTh/rGO ternary nanocomposite films were analyzed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Compared with Ag/PTh/rGO and Pt/PTh/rGO ternary nanocomposite films, obviously bright Au nanoparticles were observed on the surface of the massive lamination PTh film which wrapped the rGO, and encapsulated Au nanoparticles were observed in the Au/PTh/rGO film. Comparative gas sensing results showed that the Au/PTh/rGO ternary nanocomposite film had the highest response compared with Ag/PTh/rGO and Pt/PTh/rGO ternary nanocomposite films at room temperature, especially when the testing concentration of NH₃ gas was below 5 ppm. The Au/PTh/rGO ternary nanocomposite film also had a fast response time and good reproducibility. The combination of the high catalytic activity of naked Au nanoparticles and the formation of effective carrier transfer channels by encapsulated Au nanoparticles was responsible for the improved response of the Au/PTh/rGO ternary nanocomposite film.