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Facile synthesis of novel YbFeO3–BiFeO3 composite for highly sensitive ppb-level acetone sensing at low temperature

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Abstract

High sensitivity and low detection limit are crucial parameters in evaluating the performance of gas sensors, particularly in detecting trace amounts of acetone gas in human respiration for diabetes monitoring purposes. In this study, a composite of YbFeO3–BiFeO3 (YFO–BFO) was prepared using a facile method involving the calcination of a mixture of Yb2O3 and BiFeO3, followed by acid treatment. It is revealed that the introduction of YbFeO3 significantly improves the acetone gas sensitivity and reduces the operating temperature. At an optimized operating temperature of 200 °C, the response of YFO–BFO to 10 ppm acetone reaches 32.6, which is 16.6 times higher than that of BiFeO3 at the optimized operating temperature of 280 °C. Moreover, the response to 400 ppb of acetone still has 7 even at the low temperature of 160 °C. YFO–BFO also exhibits a low limit of detection (25 ppb), good selectivity and stability. The excellent gas-sensing performance of YFO–BFO is mainly attributed to the formation of a p-p heterojunction and the increased Fe2+/Fe3+ redox pairs. This work offers a novel approach for enhancing the acetone sensing properties of BiFeO3-based gas sensors, which may lead to the advancement of acetone sensors for the diagnosis of diabetes.

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Data availability

The datasets and analyses generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the Shanghai Pujiang Program (Grant No. 21PJD079), Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (Grant No. 21ZR1472700).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Electronic Materials and Devices, School of Electronics and Information Engineering, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, 300401, China

    Xinyi Chen & Chong Geng

  2. CAS Key Laboratory of Inorganic Functional Materials and Devices, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201899, China

    Xinyi Chen & Nan Ma

  3. Electronic College, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Zhongqiu Hua

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  1. Xinyi Chen
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Contributions

XYC: Investigation, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing-original draft. ZQH: Supervision, Validation, Writing—review and editing. CG: Supervision, Validation, Writing—review and editing. NM: Conceptualization, Resources, Formal analysis, Writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Chong Geng or Nan Ma.

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Chen, X., Hua, Z., Geng, C. et al. Facile synthesis of novel YbFeO3–BiFeO3 composite for highly sensitive ppb-level acetone sensing at low temperature. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1588 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10990-x

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