LPG gas sensor activities of CeO2-Fe2O3 nanocomposite thin film at optimum temperature

This research paper illustrates the study about the metal oxide composite material and sums up the mechanism of LPG gas sensing. The microwave assisted sol-gel method was applied for synthesizing the ultrafine CeO2, alpha-Fe2O3 nanoparticles (NPs) and CeO2-Fe2O3 nanocomposites (NCs). The synthesized materials were characterized by means of techniques as XRD, SEM, EDAX and UV-Vis. Spectroscopy. X-ray diffraction patterns of CeO2 NPs confirmed the cubic structure with crystallite size of 26 nm, and alpha-Fe2O3 NPs revealed the creation of rhombohedral structure with crystallite size of 25 nm. The CeO2-Fe2O3 nanocomposite (NC) has a crystallite size of 10 nm. The SEM image of CeO2-Fe2O3 NC shows small clusters of nanoparticles leading to the establishment of a high mesoporous surface which is useful for gas sensing application. An optical analysis shows that band gap energy lowers from 3.19 eV (E-g-CeO2) to 1.4 eV (E-g-CeO2-Fe2O3). In this paper, we evaluated the features and mechanism of the LPG sensor centered on pure metal oxides (CeO2, alpha-Fe2O3) and their composite (CeO2-Fe2O3). The CeO2-Fe2O3 NCs sensor exhibited the highest response of 61.43% with concentration of LPG (24 ppm) at optimum operating temperature 250 degrees C.

Automated summary

The research utilized the microwave assisted sol-gel method to synthesize CeO2, alpha-Fe2O3, and CeO2-Fe2O3 nanocomposites, with the CeO2-Fe2O3 nanocomposite sensor showing the highest response to LPG at 250 degrees Celsius.