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Room temperature NO2 sensor with rapid recovery based on ZnO/In2O3 heterojunction

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Abstract

Metal oxides have been widely used in gas sensors. Metal oxides have the advantages of low cost, easy preparation and stable performance. However, the disadvantage of their high operating temperature limits their wider application. In this paper, a simple method based on hydrothermal reaction was developed to prepare ZnO/In2O3 composites with high response values capable of fast recovery. The chemical composition, microscopic morphology and structure of the ZnO/In2O3 composites were investigated by various characterization methods to determine the formation of ZnO/In2O3 heterojunction. The gas-sensitive properties of pure In2O3 and ZnO/In2O3 composites were tested at room temperature. The results showed that ZnO/In2O3 composites with different Zn/In molar ratios had short recovery time and high response value to NO2 at room temperature. Among them, the ZnO/In2O3 with Zn/In molar ratio of 2:1 showed the best gas-sensitive performance to NO2 at room temperature. The response values to NO2 were measured at concentrations of 5, 10, 20, and 30 ppm, resulting in values of 2.70, 3.26, 4.80, and 5.25, respectively. The response time to NO2 at 30 ppm was 267 s, with a recovery time of 7 s. In addition, ZnO/In2O3 composites have good long-term stability and selectivity to NO2 at room temperature.

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Funding

This research was supported by the Independent Innovation Fund of the Second Research Institute of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (110000856); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2023ZKPYTD01).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), Beijing, China

    Xiao Huang, Yazhi Li, Junqing Peng, Guan Wang, Shuo Mei & Mingyang Li

  2. Beijing Machine and Equipment Institute, Beijing, China

    Yuhang Liu & Bo Peng

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  1. Xiao Huang
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  2. Yazhi Li
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  3. Yuhang Liu
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Contributions

XH contributed to the experiments and data analysis supervision, funding acquisition, reviewing and editing of the manuscript. YL contributed to the conceptualization of the study, experiments, data analysis, and manuscript editing. BP, YL and JP contributed to the experimental resources. GW, SM and ML contributed to the experiments.

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Correspondence to Xiao Huang.

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Huang, X., Li, Y., Liu, Y. et al. Room temperature NO2 sensor with rapid recovery based on ZnO/In2O3 heterojunction. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 35, 869 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-024-12649-7

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