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The prior rules of designing Ti3C2Tx MXene-based gas sensors

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Abstract

Working temperature, sensitivity, and selectivity are some of the characteristics of the applied gas sensors. How to design and fabricate an ideal gas sensor working at room temperature is still challenging and attracting lots of interest. Two-dimensional (2D) materials with ultra-thin structure have been demonstrated as a family of ideal candidates to achieve this goal. Among them, Ti3C2Tx MXene, a kind of layered sheet synthesized by selectively etching MAX phases materials, shows remarkable potential to be the sensitive materials solely or in a composite. However, their designing rules are still lacking critical thinking from the viewpoint of the intrinsic property of Ti3C2Tx MXene based materials. In this article, two critical features, i.e., the thickness of the sensitive materials, and the scope of the analytes, are elaborated towards Ti3C2Tx MXene based gas sensors after characterizing the performance of sensing reducing gases (NH3 and CO) and oxidizing gas (NO2). First, the thinner the Ti3C2Tx MXene sensitive layer, the better the sensitivity. Second, the Ti3C2Tx MXene based gas sensor is not suitable for strong and moderate oxidation gas due to its ease of oxidation. These two rules are demonstrated, and could be considered with priority both in the future researches and practical applications.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21801243), the Fundamental Research Funds the Central Universities of China (Grant No. JC2002), and the International Research Fellow of the Japan Society of the Promotion of Science (JSPS, Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research in Japan (Standard), P18334).

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  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Interdisciplinary Research Center of Smart Sensors, Xidian University, Xi’an, 710126, China

    Yingying Jian, Danyao Qu, Lihao Guo, Yujin Zhu, Chen Su, Huanran Feng & Weiwei Wu

  2. Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study, Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan

    Ming-Shui Yao

  3. Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710061, China

    Guangjian Zhang & Jia Zhang

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  1. Yingying Jian
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Correspondence to Weiwei Wu or Ming-Shui Yao.

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Jian, Y., Qu, D., Guo, L. et al. The prior rules of designing Ti3C2Tx MXene-based gas sensors. Front. Chem. Sci. Eng. 15, 505–517 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-020-2013-y

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