Electrical, Photocatalytic, and Humidity Sensing Applications of Mixed Metal Oxide Nanocomposites

Kausar Shaheen; Zarbad Shah; Behramand Khan; Adnan; Muhammad Omer; Muhammad Alamzeb; Hongli Suo

doi:10.1021/acsomega.9b04074

Electrical, Photocatalytic, and Humidity Sensing Applications of Mixed Metal Oxide Nanocomposites

ACS Omega. 2020 Mar 24;5(13):7271-7279. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.9b04074. eCollection 2020 Apr 7.

Authors

Kausar Shaheen^{1

2}, Zarbad Shah³, Behramand Khan⁴, Adnan⁵, Muhammad Omer⁵, Muhammad Alamzeb⁶, Hongli Suo¹

Affiliations

¹ The Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Materials, Ministry of Education, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China.
² Department of Physics, Jinnah College for Women, University of Peshawar, Peshawar 25120, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
³ Department of Chemistry, Bacha Khan University Charsadda, Charsadda24420, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Islamia College University Peshawar, Peshawar 25120, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
⁵ Institute of Chemical Sciences, University of Swat, Swat 19201, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
⁶ Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Kotli, Kotli 11100, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan.

Abstract

Mixed metal oxide nanocomposites (NCs) comprising Cu-Sr (CS), Sr-Cd (SC), and Cd-Cu (CC) were fabricated via a sol-gel method. Structural investigations of fabricated samples were carried out via X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The Maxwell-Wagner model, attributing to poor conducting layers around the conducting grains, was indicated to be followed by all of the NCs while investigating the dielectric properties. The Space-charge polarization and hoping mechanism contributed to low AC conductivity at lower frequencies and high AC conductivity at higher frequencies. The as-synthesized NCs effectively degraded two toxic water contaminants, such as crystal violet (CV) and Congo red (CR). Furthermore, the NCs were also evaluated for humidity sensing measurements. All of the NCs indicated efficient response/recovery time with better stability. The extensive investigation suggested the synthesized NCs, well suited for various optical and microelectronic applications.