Synthesis and enhanced NO2-sensing properties of ZnO-decorated SnO2 microspheres

In this work, ZnO was decorated onto SnO2 microspheres via a facile solvothermal method, and the gas sensing characteristics of the ZnO/SnO2 composites was systematically studied. Results showed that the ZnO/SnO2 composites was highly responsive to NO2, with much lower response to interfering gases such as ethanol and acetone. At the optimum temperature (200 degrees C), the response of the ZnO/SnO2 composite to 100 ppm NO2 was about 3 times higher than that of pristine SnO2 microspheres. Furthermore, ZnO decoration on SnO2 microspheres led to significant reduction in the response time. The improvement of gas-sensing performance may be ascribed to the formation of more surface adsorption sites on the ZnO/SnO2 composite. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.