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Selective room-temperature ammonia sensing using CeO2-multiwalled carbon nanotube composite

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Abstract

A chemiresistive sensor has been developed for the room-temperature detection of ammonia vapors using CeO2/multiwalled carbon nanotubes composite synthesized via. two-step method. Structural analysis has revealed the successful formation of the composite. The ammonia sensing measurements using composite-based sensor have shown an increase in device resistance when exposed to ammonia vapors. This indicates p-type conduction in the composite. A linear relation between sensing response and ammonia concentration was obtained. On the one hand, sensor made from CeO2 also gave a sensing response at room temperature and corresponding recovery time was quiet large (190 s). On the other hand, sensor made from CeO2/MWCNTs has shown a response time of 35 s and relatively smaller recovery time (100 s). Further, composite-based sensor has shown higher sensitivity to ammonia when compared with dimethyl formamide, N-methyl pyrrolidone, methanol, isopropyl alcohol, ethanol and chloroform. Importantly, the device has shown a stable and reproducible characteristics over a wide range of humidity.

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Data Availability

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

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Funding

This work was supported financially by Department of Science and Technology (DST) New Delhi, India under the Grant No. EMR/2016-007483.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab, 143005, India

    Nitesh Dogra, Mandeep Singh & Sandeep Sharma

  2. Swami Premanand Mahavidyalaya, Mukerian, Punjab, 144211, India

    Arun Kumar

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  1. Nitesh Dogra
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  2. Mandeep Singh
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  3. Arun Kumar
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  4. Sandeep Sharma
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material synthesis, data collection and analysis were performed by ND. The first draft of the manuscript was written by SS, and all authors provided their feedback on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Sandeep Sharma.

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Dogra, N., Singh, M., Kumar, A. et al. Selective room-temperature ammonia sensing using CeO2-multiwalled carbon nanotube composite. Appl. Phys. A 129, 24 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-022-06283-5

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