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Simple point contact WO3 sensor for NO2 sensing and relevant impedance analysis

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Abstract

A simple and new point contact tungsten trioxide (WO3) sensor, which can be prepared by the oxidation of tungsten filaments via in-situ induction heating, likely detects low concentration (ppm level) environmental pollutants such as NO2. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) were applied to characterize the phase and the microstructure of the samples, respectively. It was found that the synthesized WO3 films exhibited a monoclinic phase and were composed of hierarchical microcrystals and nanocrystals. The point contact WO3 sensor (W-WO3-W) showed rectifying characteristics and an ideal sensing performance of about 110°C. A single semicircle in Nyquist plots was recorded by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) at a relatively low temperature of 150°C but faded away above 200°C, which revealed that the sensing process was governed by a determining factor, i.e., grain boundaries at the contact site.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Wu-bin Gao & Jia-lin Sun

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Yun-han Ling & Xu Liu

Authors
  1. Wu-bin Gao
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  2. Yun-han Ling
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  3. Xu Liu
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  4. Jia-lin Sun
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yun-han Ling.

Additional information

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.NSAF10876017, NSAF10776017, and 91023037).

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Gao, Wb., Ling, Yh., Liu, X. et al. Simple point contact WO3 sensor for NO2 sensing and relevant impedance analysis. Int J Miner Metall Mater 19, 1142–1148 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12613-012-0683-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12613-012-0683-2

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