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Orientation controlled preparation of nanoporous carbon nitride fibers and related composite for gas sensing under ambient conditions

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Abstract

Creating pores in suprastructures of two-dimensional (2D) materials while controlling the orientation of the 2D building blocks is important in achieving large specific surface areas and tuning the anisotropic properties of the obtained functional hierarchical structures. In this contribution, we report that arranging graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanosheets into one-dimensional (1D) architectures with controlled orientation has been achieved by using 1D oriented melem hydrate fibers as the synthetic precursor via a polycondensation process, during which the removal of water molecules and release of ammonia gas led to the creation of pores without destroying the 1D morphology of the oriented structures. The resulting porous g-C3N4 fibers with both meso- and micro-sized pores and largely exposed edges exhibited good sensing sensitivity and selectivity towards NO2. The sensing performance was further improved by hybridization of the porous fibers with Au nanoparticles (Au NPs), leading to a detection limit of 60 ppb under ambient conditions. Our results suggest that the highly porous g-C3N4 fibers and the related hybrid structures with largely exposed graphitic layer edges are excellent sensing platforms and may also show promise in other electronic and electrochemical applications.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51322202) and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province in China (No. BK20130927).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLOFE) & Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangsu National Synergistic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing Tech University, 30 South Puzhu Road, Nanjing, 211816, China

    Suqin Li, Zhiwei Wang, Xiaoshan Wang, Fangfang Sun, Kai Gao, Ningxian Hao, Zhipeng Zhang, Zhongyuan Ma, Hai Li, Xiao Huang & Wei Huang

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  1. Suqin Li
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  2. Zhiwei Wang
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Correspondence to Xiao Huang or Wei Huang.

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12274_2017_1423_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Orientation controlled preparation of nanoporous carbon nitride fibers and related composite for gas sensing under ambient conditions

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Li, S., Wang, Z., Wang, X. et al. Orientation controlled preparation of nanoporous carbon nitride fibers and related composite for gas sensing under ambient conditions. Nano Res. 10, 1710–1719 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1423-8

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