A review of recent developments in tin dioxide composites for gas sensing application

SnO2 has been extensively investigated and used to detect a variety of gases for practical application. SnO2 nanomaterials with different morphologies and spatial assemblies have been fabricated in the last few years in order to improve the gas sensing performances. Meanwhile, many reports on the fabrication and gas sensing research using SnO2-based composites have been also published recently. In this work, we reviewed the recent developments of conductivity type of gas sensors for various SnO2-based composites, including SnO2/inorganic metal oxide, SnO2/carbon nanomaterials, SnO2/noble metals, SnO2/polymer, and SnO2/other materials in the last five years. Most of reports demonstrated that using a composite the properties of the gas sensing material could be greatly improved, such as high sensitivity, low working temperature, quick response, excellent stability or low detection limit. Each component had its unique effect to influence the sensing properties of the composite. The possible development directions were also discussed. (C) 2016 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.