Developing gas sensors capable of efficiently detecting harmful gases is urgent to protect the human environment. Here, an active Ce-Ag bimetallic pair was innovatively introduced into SnS2, which successfully exhibited excellent NO2 gas sensing performance. 0.8% Ce-SnS2-Ag showed a gas sensing response of 5.18 to 1 ppm of NO2 at a low temperature of 80 °C, with a lower limit of detection as low as 100 ppb. DFT calculations revealed that Ce atoms are substituted into the main lattice of SnS2, which opens up the interlayer spacing and serves as an anchor point to fix the Ag atoms in the interlayer. The Ce-Ag bimetallic pairs successfully modulate the electronic structure of SnS2, which promotes the adsorption and charge transfer between NO2 and Ce-SnS2-Ag and thus achieves such an outstanding gas sensing performance. This work opens an avenue for the rational functional modification of SnS2 with an optimized electronic structure and enhanced gas sensing.
Keywords: Ag intercalate; Ce doping; Ce−Ag bimetallic pairs; NO2 sensing; SnS2; interlayer expansion.