Formaldehyde sensing characteristics of hydrothermally synthesized Zn2SnO4 nanocubes

Metal oxide semiconductor-based gas sensor preferentially possessing great attention due to its outstanding gas sensing performances. Nevertheless, monobasic oxides could not tackle problems such as high operating temperature, poor selectivity and durability. Here, a facile and cost-efficient hydrothermal method has been exploited to produce Zn2SnO4 nanocube as a multi-oxide semiconductor formaldehyde gas sensor. The fabricated gas sensor exhibited remarkable response value (R-air/R-gas = 23.57) and response/recovery time (15/17 s) to 50 ppm formaldehyde at the optimal operating temperature of 230 degrees C, respectively. The excellent gas sensing mechanism of sensor is carefully discussed which can be attributed to large specific surface area (24.83 m(2)/g), distinct nanocube structure and high pore size (83.19 nm). (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.