Humidity-Sensing Properties of a BiOCl-Coated Quartz Crystal Microbalance

Qiao Chen; Ning-Bo Feng; Xian-He Huang; Yao Yao; Ying-Rong Jin; Wei Pan; Dong Liu

doi:10.1021/acsomega.0c01946

Humidity-Sensing Properties of a BiOCl-Coated Quartz Crystal Microbalance

ACS Omega. 2020 Jul 21;5(30):18818-18825. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c01946. eCollection 2020 Aug 4.

Authors

Qiao Chen¹, Ning-Bo Feng², Xian-He Huang¹, Yao Yao¹, Ying-Rong Jin², Wei Pan¹, Dong Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Automation Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, No. 2006, Xiyuan Avenue, Chengdu, Sichuan 611731, China.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xihua University, No. 99 Jinzhou Road, Chengdu, Sichuan 610039, China.

Abstract

The performance of a bismuth oxychloride (BiOCl)-based quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) humidity sensor was studied using an oscillating circuit method. The BiOCl powder was prepared by a hydrolysis method. Scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were used to characterize the BiOCl sample. Its humidity-sensing property was analyzed by combining it with a QCM at room temperature (25 °C). Experimental results indicated that the BiOCl-based QCM sensor showed good humidity characteristics from 11.3 to 97.3%, such as good logarithmic frequency response to humidity levels (R ² = 0.994), fast response time (5.2 s)/recovery time (4.5 s), good reversibility, stability, repeatability, and low humidity hysteresis. In addition, the response to human nose breaths showed excellent practicability. Finally, the humidity sensing mechanism of the BiOCl-based QCM humidity sensor was discussed in detail. This work demonstrates that BiOCl is a promising candidate material for humidity detection.