Gas sensor using single-wall carbon nanohorns

We fabricated a gas sensor using single-walled carbon nanohorns (SWNHs) produced by the gas-injected arc-in-water method. This gas sensor consisted of agglomerated SWNHs as a coating film between Al electrodes on a glass substrate and the shift of the electric resistance of this coating film caused by gas adsorption was monitored. Its sensing property was examined for the detection of NH3 and O-3 at room temperature. It was confirmed that the electrical resistance of the SWNHs film increases with adsorption of NH3, whereas the adsorption of O-3 induced the decrease of the resistance. A model to correlate the gas concentration and the sensing property was proposed focusing on the detection of NH3 based on mono-layer adsorption and a second-order interaction of adsorbed gas molecules for charge transfer.