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Enhanced acetone sensing performance in black TiO2 by Ag modification

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Abstract

The application of TiO2 acetone monitor is highly limited by the high operating temperature and poor sensitivity. In this work, black TiO2 (B-TiO2) is produced by Ti3+ self-doping and is followed by Ag modification to form B-TiO2@Ag. It is first demonstrated that the operating temperature and sensitivity of TiO2 to acetone can be promoted evidently. By introducing a Ti3+ self-doped layer on the surface of TiO2, as observed in TEM images, the band gap of TiO2 is reduced to 3.01 eV. Ag surface decoration is carried out for the enhancement of electron generation. Optical absorption and the Hall effect results prove that B-TiO2@Ag exhibits highest photoelectrical properties. As a result, the B-TiO2@Ag gas sensor with a low operating temperature at 250 °C and high response of 68.19 to 50 ppm acetone is realized. The low detection limit of B-TiO2@Ag sensor reaches 887 ppb, which provides an applicable way for non-invasive detection of blood glucose.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (61774084), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (NG2019003 and NP2017106), Joint Frontier Research Project of Jiangsu Province (BY2016003-09), the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (KYCX18_0273), and a Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Technology, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Materials and Technology for Energy Conversion, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China

    Wangyang Yang, Honglie Shen & Jiawei Ge

  2. College of Chemical Engineering, Advanced Analysis and Testing Center, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210016, China

    Huihua Min

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  1. Wangyang Yang
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Contributions

WY took the responsibility of the design of experiments and the written of manuscript. HS spent much efforts on the revision of manuscript and the construction of labs. HM helped to complete the measurements and gas sensitivity appraising. JG mainly carried out the experiment operation.

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Correspondence to Honglie Shen.

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Yang, W., Shen, H., Min, H. et al. Enhanced acetone sensing performance in black TiO2 by Ag modification. J Mater Sci 55, 10399–10411 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-020-04703-6

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