Methanol Gas Sensor Based on ZnO-SnO2 Hollow Urchins

Herein, the facile growth, characterization and methanol gas sensing application of hollow ZnO-SnO2 urchins have been reported. The growth of hollow ZnO-SnO2 urchins was done by thermal evaporation process characterized by various characterization techniques such as field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) equipped with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman-scattering and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The detailed characterization confirmed that the grown ZnO-SnO2 material have hollow spherical shaped structures with pointed spikes on their outer surfaces which resemble like urchins and exhibited well-crystallinity. The grown hollow ZnO-SnO2 urchins were used as an effective electrode material to fabricate methanol gas sensor which exhibited high gas response of 4.636 with very low recovery and response times of 13 s and 10 s, respectively at an optimized temperature of 320 degrees C.