Facile fabrication of ZnO/C nanoporous fibers and ZnO hollow spheres for high performance gas sensor

The porous and hollow nanostructure materials have drawn consideration attention due to their broader use. Herein, the ZnO/Carbon nanoporous fibers (ZnO/C nanoporous fibers) and ZnO hollow sphere were synthesized simultaneously by using activated carbon fibers (ACF) as an efficiently template. Gas sensors were made based on ZnO/C nanoporous fibers, ZnO hollow sphere, Ag doped ZnO hollow spheres (Ag/ZnO) and Pt decorated ZnO hollow spheres (Pt/ZnO), respectively. Studies found that ZnO/C nanoporous fibers possess better gas-sensing properties than ZnO hollow sphere, the responses of the ZnO/C nanoporous fibers to 100 ppm ethanol and acetone are 53.222 and 59.273 at the optimum operating temperature. The Ag/ZnO and Pt/ZnO exhibited significantly enhanced gas sensing performance, including 4.58 times and 8.35 times higher responsivity to ethanol than ZnO hollow spheres. Furthermore, the four types of gas sensors exhibit higher sensing properties than other ZnO based gas sensors. Hence, our results should be useful for creating high efficiency gas sensing devices.