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Preparation and gas-sensing properties of holey ZnO nanosheets doped by gold nanoparticles

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Abstract

Holey ZnO nanosheets and their composites doped by gold nanoparticles were synthesized via a simple hydrothermal and calcination treatment. The composites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and nitrogen adsorption-desorption analysis. Experimental results demonstrate that the composites are composed of holey ZnO nanosheets and gold nanoparticles. The gold nanoparticles (with sizes of around 15 nm) are dispersed on the surface of ZnO nanosheets (with thicknesses around 20 nm). As the gold nanoparticles hinder the stacking of the ZnO nanosheets, the specific surface areas of the composites are significantly increased, and more gas-diffusion paths of the composites are available. Thus, the sensors based on holey ZnO nanosheets show high responses to alcohols, acetone, formaldehyde, xylene and toluene. Moreover, the sensors based on the holey ZnO nanosheets doped with gold nanoparticles exhibit higher sensitivity, especially the ZnO–Au-2 (4.0 wt% Au) sensor, which shows responses of 1043.6, 540.0 and 2822.7 towards 100 ppm acetone, ethanol and n-butanol, respectively. The sensor based on ZnO–Au-2 also shows good sensitivity to low-concentration acetone and n-butanol (detection limit about 0.2 ppm). Our results demonstrated that sensor based on 4.0 wt% gold doped ZnO nanosheets is promising candidates for medical diagnosis to detect low-concentration acetone.

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Acknowledgements

This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62075035), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021B1515420001).

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62075035), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021B1515420001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hubei Key Laboratory of Plasma Chemistry and Advanced Materials, Wuhan Institute of Technology, 430073, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China

    Siyu Wang, Zhidong Lin & Ping Fu

  2. Zhongshan Branch of State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin Films and Integrated Devices, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Zhongshan Institute, 528402, Zhongshan, People’s Republic of China

    Liming Liu

  3. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Information Materials, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, 541004, Guilin, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaowen Zhang

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  1. Siyu Wang
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Contributions

SW: Conceptualization, Experimental, Data curation, writing—Original Draft. JG: Experimental, Data curation, Methodology, Investigation, ZL: Project administration, Formal analysis, Review & Editing, Supervision. LL: Funding acquisition; Resources, Review & Editing. XZ: Resources, review. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhidong Lin.

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Wang, S., Lin, Z., Fu, P. et al. Preparation and gas-sensing properties of holey ZnO nanosheets doped by gold nanoparticles. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1109 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10525-4

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