Facile Hydrothermal Synthesis of SnO2 Nanoflowers for Low-Concentration Formaldehyde Detection

Chao Xiang; Tingting Chen; Yan Zhao; Jianhai Sun; Kaisheng Jiang; Yongzhen Li; Xiaofeng Zhu; Xinxiao Zhang; Ning Zhang; Ruihua Guo

doi:10.3390/nano12132133

Facile Hydrothermal Synthesis of SnO₂ Nanoflowers for Low-Concentration Formaldehyde Detection

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Jun 21;12(13):2133. doi: 10.3390/nano12132133.

Authors

Chao Xiang¹, Tingting Chen^{2

3}, Yan Zhao¹, Jianhai Sun², Kaisheng Jiang^{2

3}, Yongzhen Li⁴, Xiaofeng Zhu⁴, Xinxiao Zhang^{2

3}, Ning Zhang¹, Ruihua Guo⁴

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Power Safety Monitoring Technology and Equipment, China Nuclear Power Engineering Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, Guangdong 518172, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Transducer Technology, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100194, China.
³ School of Electronic, Electrical and Communication Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁴ Institute of Urban Safety and Environmental Science, Beijing Academy of Science and Technology, Beijing 100054, China.

Abstract

In this work, SnO₂ nanoflowers were prepared by a simple one-step hydrothermal process. The morphology and structure of SnO₂ nanoflowers were characterized by SEM, TEM, Raman spectroscopy, and XRD, which demonstrated the good crystallinity of the SnO₂ tetrahedron structure of the as-synthesized materials. In addition, the sensing properties of SnO₂ nanoflowers were studied in detail. It was found that the SnO₂ nanoflower-based gas sensor exhibits excellent gas response (9.2 to 120 ppm), fast response and recovery (2/15 s to 6 ppm), good linearity of correlation between response (S) vs. concentration (C) (lgS = 0.505 lgC - 0.147, R² = 0.9863), superb repeatability, and selectivity at 300 °C. The outstanding performance can also be attributed to the high specific surface area ratio and size of SnO₂ nanoflowers close to the thickness of the electron depletion layer that can provide abundant active sites, promote the rate of interaction, and make it easier for gas molecules to diffuse into the interior of the material. Therefore, SnO₂ nanoflowers can be an ideal sensing material for real-time monitoring of low-concentration HCHO.

Keywords: SnO2 nanoflowers; formaldehyde gas sensing; hydrothermal; low concentration.

Abstract

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