Organic/Inorganic-Based Flexible Membrane for a Room-Temperature Electronic Gas Sensor

Husam H D AlTakroori; Ashraf Ali; Yaser E Greish; Naser Qamhieh; Saleh T Mahmoud

doi:10.3390/nano12122037

Organic/Inorganic-Based Flexible Membrane for a Room-Temperature Electronic Gas Sensor

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Jun 14;12(12):2037. doi: 10.3390/nano12122037.

Authors

Husam H D AlTakroori¹, Ashraf Ali¹, Yaser E Greish^{2

3}, Naser Qamhieh¹, Saleh T Mahmoud¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain 15551, United Arab Emirates.
² Department of Chemistry, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain 15551, United Arab Emirates.
³ Department of Ceramics, National Research Centre, Cairo 68824, Egypt.

Abstract

A room temperature (RT) H₂S gas sensor based on organic-inorganic nanocomposites has been developed by incorporating zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) into a conductivity-controlled organic polymer matrix. A homogeneous solution containing poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and ionic liquid (IL) and further doped with ZnO NPs was used for the fabrication of a flexible membrane (approx. 200 μm in thickness). The sensor was assessed for its performance against hazardous gases at RT (23 °C). The obtained sensor exhibited good sensitivity, with a detection limit of 15 ppm, and a fast time response (24 ± 3 s) toward H₂S gas. The sensor also showed excellent repeatability, long-term stability and selectivity toward H₂S gas among other test gases. Furthermore, the sensor depicted a high flexibility, low cost, easy fabrication and low power consumption, thus holding great promise for flexible electronic gas sensors.

Keywords: H2S sensor; ZnO NPs; metal oxide semiconductor; organic polymer; organic-inorganic nanocomposite.

Grants and funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from United Arab Emirates University through Grant Code-G00003453 with fund code 12R003-ZCHS-3-2020 and Grant Code-USRP-G00003232 with fund code 31R238-R238M4.