Novel SnO₂@open microcell-liked graphene network as efficient detection for NO₂

Abstract

The design of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) with novel porous structure has attracted tremendous attention owing to their larger specific surface area. Herein, three-dimensional open microcells, bowl-shaped RGO were fabricated through spray drying method which employed polystyrene spheres as a sacrificial template. The bowl-shaped, open microcell-liked pores observed in the RGO network had an average diameter of ≈1 μm. Subsequently, the catalytic SnO₂ nanoparticles were loaded on RGO network via a simple solvothermal method (SnO₂@RGO), and their gas sensing properties were investigated at room temperature (RT). In a comparison with pristine RGO network, the SnO₂@RGO composite exhibited almost 4 times higher response to 400 ppm NO₂ at RT and rapid recovery time. The extraordinary sensing performance can be attributed to the novel open microcell-liked porous microstructure with the SnO₂ catalyst nanoparticles.

Keywords:

• Open microcell-liked graphene network
• heterojunction
• NO₂ sensing
• RT

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by Heilongjiang Province Science Foundation (UNPYSCT-2016180), and the Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 61403110) and Harbin Special Fund for Innovation Talents of Science and Technology (RC2017QN017004).