SnO/SnO₂ heterojunction: an alternative candidate for sensing NO₂ with fast response at room temperature

Abstract

The SnO₂-based family is a traditional but important gas-sensitive material. However, the requirement for high working temperature limits its practical application. Much work has been done to explore ways to improve its gas-sensing performance at room temperature (RT). For this report, SnO₂, SnO, and SnO/SnO₂ heterojunction was successfully synthesized by a facile hydrothermal combined with subsequent calcination. Pure SnO₂ requires a high operating temperature (145 °C), while SnO/SnO₂ heterojunction exhibits an excellent performance for sensing NO₂ at RT. Moreover, SnO/SnO₂ exhibits a fast response, of 32 s, to 50 ppm NO₂ at RT (27 °C), which is much faster than that of SnO (139 s). The superior sensing properties of SnO/SnO₂ heterojunction are attributed to the unique hierarchical structures, large number of adsorption sites, and enhanced electron transport. Our results show that SnO/SnO₂ heterojunction can be used as a promising high-performance NO₂ sensitive material at RT.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

SnO / SnO₂ / heterostructure / NO₂ / room temperature

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52073165), the Opening Project of Key Laboratory of Inorganic Functional Materials and Devices, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KLIFMD202202), and the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Provincial Department of Education (Grant No. 20JT008).

Electronic supplementary information

Supplementary materials can be found in the online version at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11706-022-0609-5.

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2022 Higher Education Press