The development of high-performance acetone gas sensor is of great significance for environmental protection and personal safety. SnO₂ has been intensively applied in chemical sensing areas, because of its low cost, high mobility of electrons, and good chemical stability. Herein, we incorporated nitrogen atoms into the SnO₂ nanostructure by simple solvothermal and subsequent calcination to improve gas sensing property for acetone. The crystallization, morphology, element composition, and microstructure of as-prepared products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), Raman spectroscopy, UV⁻visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV⁻vis DRS), and the Brunauer⁻Emmett⁻Teller (BET) method. It has been found that N-incorporating resulted in decreased crystallite size, reduced band-gap width, increased surface oxygen vacancies, enlarged surface area, and narrowed pore size distribution. When evaluated as gas sensor, nitrogen-incorporated SnO₂ nanostructure exhibited excellent sensitivity for acetone gas at the optimal operating temperature of 300 °C with high sensor response (Rair/Rgas - 1 = 357) and low limit of detection (7 ppb). The nitrogen-incorporated SnO₂ gas sensor shows a good selectivity to acetone in the interfering gases of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, hydrogen, and methane. Furthermore, the possible gas-sensing mechanism of N-incorporated SnO₂ toward acetone has been carefully discussed.
Keywords: acetone gas sensor; mesoporous structure; nitrogen incorporating; tin oxide.