Ordered mesoporous NiFe2O4 with ultrathin framework for low-ppb toluene sensing

Xiaoyong Lai; Kun Cao; Guoxin Shen; Ping Xue; Dan Wang; Fang Hu; Jianli Zhang; Qingfeng Yang; Xiaozhong Wang

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2018.01.015

Ordered mesoporous NiFe₂O₄ with ultrathin framework for low-ppb toluene sensing

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2018 Feb 15;63(3):187-193. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2018.01.015. Epub 2018 Jan 12.

Authors

Xiaoyong Lai¹, Kun Cao², Guoxin Shen², Ping Xue², Dan Wang³, Fang Hu⁴, Jianli Zhang², Qingfeng Yang², Xiaozhong Wang²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of High-Efficiency Utilization of Coal and Green Chemical Engineering, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China. Electronic address: xylai@nxu.edu.cn.
² State Key Laboratory of High-Efficiency Utilization of Coal and Green Chemical Engineering, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China. Electronic address: danwang@ipe.ac.cn.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenyang University of Technology, Shenyang 110870, China.

PMID: 36659004
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2018.01.015

Abstract

Highly sensitive and selective detection against specific target gases, especially at low-ppb (part per billion) level, remain a great number of challenges in gas sensor applications. In this paper, we first present an ordered mesoporous NiFe₂O₄ for highly sensitive and selective detection against low-ppb toluene. A series of mesoporous NiFe₂O₄ materials were synthesized by templating from mesoporous silica KIT-6 and its framework thickness was reduced from 8.5 to 5 nm by varying the pore size of KIT-6 from 9.4 to 5.6 nm, accompanied with the increase of the specific surface area from 134 to 216 m² g^-1. The ordered mesoporous NiFe₂O₄ with both ultrathin framework of 5 nm and large specific surface area of up to 216 m² g^-1 exhibits a highest response (R_gas/R_air - 1 = 77.3) toward 1,000 ppb toluene at 230 °C and is nearly 7.3 and 76.7 times higher than those for the NiFe₂O₄ replica with thick framework and its bulk counterpart respectively, which also possesses a quite low limit of detection (<2 ppb), and good selectivity.

Keywords: Gas sensing; Low-ppb toluene; Mesoporous material; NiFe(2)O(4).