Hierarchical SnO2nanoflower sensitized by BNQDs enhances the gas sensing performances to BTEX

Zhenyu Feng; Shuo Wang; Guangchao Yin; Ramachandran Rajan; Fuchao Jia

doi:10.1088/1361-6528/ac5a85

Hierarchical SnO₂nanoflower sensitized by BNQDs enhances the gas sensing performances to BTEX

Nanotechnology. 2022 Apr 1;33(25). doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac5a85.

Authors

Zhenyu Feng¹, Shuo Wang², Guangchao Yin³, Ramachandran Rajan³, Fuchao Jia³

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory for Colloid and Interface Chemistry of Education Ministry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, 250100, People's Republic of China.
² State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, Fujian, 350116, People's Republic of China.
³ School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo, Shandong, 255000, People's Republic of China.

PMID: 35240584
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac5a85

Abstract

In this study, the SnO₂nanoflowers with hierarchical structures sensitized by boron nitride quantum dots (BNQDs) were prepared through a simple hydrothermal method. It was applied for the detection of the BTEX vapors. Further investigation showed that the response value of SnO₂sensitized by different amounts of BNQDs to the BTEX gases have a certain improvement. Especially 10-BNQDs/SnO₂gas sensor exhibited a significant improvement in gas sensing performance and its response values to different BTEX gases was increased up to 2-4 folds compared with the intrinsic SnO₂sensor. In addition, SnO₂nanoflowers based gas sensor showed surprisingly fast response and recovery time for BTEX gases with 1-2 s. That can be attributed to the sensitization of BNQDs and the hierarchical structure of SnO₂nanoflowers, which provided an easy channel for the gas diffusion. An economically viable gas sensor based on BNQDs sensitized SnO₂nanoflowers exhibited a great potential in BTEX gas detection due to the simple synthesis method, environmentally friendly raw materials and excellent gas sensing performance.

Keywords: BN quantum dots; SnO2 nanoflowers; gas sensor.