Novel strategy to construct porous Sn-doped ZnO/ZnFe2O4 heterostructures for superior triethylamine detection

The reasonable design of heterostructure is of great significance to the development of high-performance gas sensors for practical applications. Herein, a series of Sn-doped ZnO/ZnFe2O4 (Sn-ZZFO) porous heterostructures were firstly synthesized by doping a certain amount (n wt%) of Sn4+ (n = 1.08, 2.47, and 3.75 for Sn-ZZFO-1-3, respectively) into the Prussian blue analogue (PBA)-derived ZnO/ZnFe2O4 (ZZFO) heterostructure. As a result, the Sn-ZZFO-2 exhibited excellent triethylamine (TEA) sensing performances at 270 degrees C. Its response value to 10 ppm triethylamine was 28.1, which was ca. 8.0, 4.2 and 4.8 times higher than those of ZZFO, (280 degrees C), Sn-ZZFO-1 and Sn-ZZFO-3, respectively, and even superior to the most of the ZnO-based, 5n0 2 -based, ZnFe2O4 -based and reported ZnO/ZnFe2O4 sensor materials. Moreover, Sn-ZZFO-2 possessed low detection limit (<0.2 ppm), excellent selectivity, and short response and recovery times (9 and 7 s) to TEA. The optimized gas sensing performances to TEA were ascribed to the doping a suitable amount Sn4+ into the ZZFO heterostructure, and the unique Sn-ZZFO-2 multistage pore nanosphere structure. This work highlights an efficient method for preparing porous metal ion doped heterostructures for efficient gas detection.

Automated summary

The study synthesized a series of Sn-doped porous heterostructures, among which Sn-ZZFO-2 exhibited excellent sensing performance towards triethylamine, with a higher response value compared to other structures, low detection limit, and short response and recovery times.