Zinc oxide nanowires on carbon microfiber as flexible gas sensor

Tonezzer M

First

;Lacerda RG

Last

2012-01-01

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Abstract

In the past years, zinc oxide nanowires (ZnO NWs) have been proven to be an excellent material for gas sensors. In this work, we used ZnO nanowires in a novel architecture integrated on a carbon microfiber (mu C) textile. This innovative design permits us to obtain mechanical flexibility, while the absence of any lithographic technique allows a large-area and low-cost fabrication of gas sensors. The performances of the devices are investigated for both oxidizing and reducing gases. The nano-on-micro structure of the sensor provides a high surface-to-volume ratio, leading to a fast and intense response for both oxygen (O-2) and hydrogen (H-2) gases. The sensor response has an optimum temperature condition at 280 degrees C with a response value of 10 for oxygen and 11 for hydrogen. The limit of detection (LoD) has been found to be 2 and 4 ppm for oxygen and hydrogen, respectively. Additionally, the sensor response and recovery time is small being less than 10 s for both O-2 and H-2. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.