Impact of reducing agents on the ammonia sensing performance of silver decorated reduced graphene oxide: Experiment and first principles calculations

We investigate economic room temperature sensors for toxic ammonia molecules (NH3) based on reduced graphene oxide decorated with silver nanoparticles (Ag:rGO) to provide a systematic understanding of the role played by the employed reducing agent. To this aim, we perform a comparative study of the sensing performance for a set of reducing agents, using a combination of experimental and theoretical methods. Specifically, Ag:rGO prepared with the reducing agents glucose, vitamin C, and sodium borohydride (NaBH4) is studied experimentally by the chemi-resistive method and is modelled theoretically by first-principles calculations. NaBH4 turns out to be an effective reducing agent due to favourable charge transfer kinetics by band bending.

Automated summary

The study found that NaBH4 is an effective reducing agent due to favorable charge transfer kinetics by band bending. The combination of experimental and theoretical methods can provide a deeper understanding of the comparative study of different reducing agents.