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Constructing porous ZnO/SnO2 nanocomposites for the detection of methane at low operating temperature

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Abstract

Aimed at detecting methane (CH4) gas at low operating temperature, porous ZnO/SnO2 nanocomposites were constructed through a simple two-step method. Pure SnO2 with a diameter of approximately 120 nm was first synthesized via a hydrothermal method, and then a smaller and looser ZnO/SnO2 composite structure was obtained by introducing the second component ZnO. The CH4 sensing test results showed that the ZnO/SnO2 composites exhibited lower optimum operating temperature (OOT) than that of pure SnO2. Besides, compared with pure SnO2, the ZnO/SnO2 composite based sensor present higher response to CH4, as well as good repeatability, stability and linearity in a certain range of gas concentration. The improved sensitivity can be mainly attributed to the synergistic effect of porous structure and heterojunction formed between ZnO and SnO2.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U1704255, 62101177), and the Program for Innovative Research Team of Henan Polytechnic University (T2019-1, T2018-2).

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  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo, 454000, China

    Liuyang Han, Saisai Zhang, Bowen Zhang, Bo Zhang, Bala Hari & Zhanying Zhang

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  1. Liuyang Han
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Correspondence to Saisai Zhang or Zhanying Zhang.

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Han, L., Zhang, S., Zhang, B. et al. Constructing porous ZnO/SnO2 nanocomposites for the detection of methane at low operating temperature. J Porous Mater 29, 269–278 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10934-021-01162-5

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