Facile Strategy to Synthesize Porous GO/ZnO Heterostructure for Enhanced Acetone Gas Sensing Properties

Abstract

Rapid, accurate and reliable detection of harmful gases is crucial criterion for the industrial production, environmental monitoring, medical diagnosis and other fields. To address the issue, in this paper, acetone gas sensor using porous structure of graphene oxide (GO) with zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods was introduced by room temperature solid phase method. ZnO nanorods with lengths of 2~5 μm were anchored on the surface of porous GO, displaying a unique “coral-like” 3D nanostructure. Special, the porous GO/ZnO composites exhibit the high response (42.9), fast response/recovery time (3.2/7.2 s), good selectivity and extremely stability towards 50 ppm acetone. The substantially enhanced gas sensing properties are primarily attributable to the porous structure of GO, which not only promotes a great amount of defect to form plentiful oxygen vacancies, but also supplies more channels to facilitate gas adsorption/desorption. The porous GO/ZnO heterojunction favors the pre-adsorption of oxygen molecules at the surface, which favours the enhancement of gas detection properties. Moreover, this manufacturing method of GO porous structure paves the way for the design of high performance sensing materials.

Keywords: Acetone, Porous GO/ZnO, heterostructure, Stability, Gas sensing