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Selective ethanol gas sensing performance of flower-shaped CuO composed of thin nanoplates

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Abstract

Ethanol is one of the volatile organic compounds as well as organic pollutants that is essentially to be monitored using high response sensors. Semiconducting metal oxide nanostructures can be the potential sensor material for high-performance ethanol sensing application. Herein, we present the fabrication and characterization of highly sensitive and selective ethanol gas sensor based on flower-shaped CuO composed of thin nanoplates synthesized by facile hydrothermal process. The prepared flower-shaped CuO was examined by various techniques viz FESEM, XRD, EDS, elemental mapping, HRTEM, SAED, UV-visible spectroscopy, FTIR spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy, which confirmed the high-density growth, monoclinic crystal structure, and optical band gap of ~2.5 eV. The fabricated resistive sensor device based on flower-shaped CuO, at optimum experimental conditions, i.e., 250 °C, 100 ppm ethanol concentration, exhibited a high sensing response of 241%, while, at 10 ppm of ethanol concentration, the response was observed to be 5%. The transient responses as well as the stability of the sensor were analyzed and reported here. The selectivity of CuO sensor device was studied for NO2, CO2, CO, and CH4 gases and remarkably it was seen that the developed gas sensor devices demonstrated outstanding selectivity toward ethanol gas. Finally, the gas response mechanism of the fabricated resistive ethanol gas sensor was explained on the basis of the ionosorption model.

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Deputy for Research and Innovation-Ministry of Education, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the research through a Grant (NU/IFC/INT/01/004) under the institutional funding committee at Najran University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Arts, Najran University, P.O. Box 1988, Najran, 11001, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Ahmad Umar & A. A. Ibrahim

  2. Promising Centre for Sensors and Electronic Devices (PCSED), Najran University, P.O. Box 1988, Najran, 11001, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Ahmad Umar, A. A. Ibrahim, Umesh T. Nakate, Hasan Albargi & Mabkhoot A. Alsaiari

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Najran University, Najran, 11001, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Umesh T. Nakate & Hasan Albargi

  4. Solar Energy Research Center, School of Semiconductor and Chemical Engineering, Jeoonbuk National University, 567 Baekjedaero, Deokjin-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do, 54896, Republic of Korea

    Umesh T. Nakate

  5. National Institute of Technology Nagaland, Dimapur, India

    Sandip P. Choudhury

  6. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Arts, Najran University, P.O. Box 1988, Najran, 11001, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Hasan Albargi

  7. Empty Quarter Research Unit, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Arts, Sharourah Branch, Najran University, Sharurah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Mabkhoot A. Alsaiari

  8. Department of Materials Science, University of Patras, Rio, 26504, Patras, Greece

    S. Baskoutas

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  1. Ahmad Umar
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  2. A. A. Ibrahim
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  3. Hassan Algadi
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Contributions

AU, AAI, HA, UTN, and SPC: experiments conduction, data analyzation, original drafting, and writing—review and editing; AU, TA, HA, MAA, and SB: visualization, revision, and validation.

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Correspondence to Ahmad Umar.

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Umar, A., Ibrahim, A.A., Algadi, H. et al. Selective ethanol gas sensing performance of flower-shaped CuO composed of thin nanoplates. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 32, 18565–18579 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-021-06249-y

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