Porous spheres-like ZnO nanostructure as sensitive gas sensors for acetone detection

Porous spheres-like zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructure was synthesized by electrospinning method followed by calcining. The microstructure and chemical composition were investigated with X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Brunauer-Emmet-Teller method and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The results showed that the porous spheres-like ZnO nanostructure with large specific surface area (22.6 m(2)/g) was composed of ZnO nanoparticles of similar to 40-80 nm grain size and numerous oxygen species (O- and O2-) were adsorbed on the surface of ZnO nanoparticles. Meanwhile, the testing on gas sensing performance revealed that porous spheres-like ZnO nanostructure based sensor has an optimum operating temperature of 310 degrees C, large resistance (1064 k Omega), good stability for low concentration acetone (2 ppm acetone at 310 degrees C) and good selectivity at 310 degrees C for acetone. Crown Copyright (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.