The prior rules of designing Ti₃C₂T_x MXene-based gas sensors

Abstract

Working temperature, sensitivity, and selectivity are some of the characteristics of the applied gas sensors. How to design and fabricate an ideal gas sensor working at room temperature is still challenging and attracting lots of interest. Two-dimensional (2D) materials with ultra-thin structure have been demonstrated as a family of ideal candidates to achieve this goal. Among them, Ti₃C₂T_x MXene, a kind of layered sheet synthesized by selectively etching MAX phases materials, shows remarkable potential to be the sensitive materials solely or in a composite. However, their designing rules are still lacking critical thinking from the viewpoint of the intrinsic property of Ti₃C₂T_x MXene based materials. In this article, two critical features, i.e., the thickness of the sensitive materials, and the scope of the analytes, are elaborated towards Ti₃C₂T_x MXene based gas sensors after characterizing the performance of sensing reducing gases (NH₃ and CO) and oxidizing gas (NO₂). First, the thinner the Ti₃C₂T_x MXene sensitive layer, the better the sensitivity. Second, the Ti₃C₂T_x MXene based gas sensor is not suitable for strong and moderate oxidation gas due to its ease of oxidation. These two rules are demonstrated, and could be considered with priority both in the future researches and practical applications.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

MXene based sensor / prior / reducing gases / oxidizing gases

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21801243), the Fundamental Research Funds the Central Universities of China (Grant No. JC2002), and the International Research Fellow of the Japan Society of the Promotion of Science (JSPS, Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research in Japan (Standard), P18334).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-020-2013-y and is accessible for authorized users.

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