High-performance gas sensors based on metal oxides operated at room temperature are of great interest due to their energy saving and cost effective characteristics. How to improve the sensitivity of metal oxide gas sensors and enable their room-temperature operation are challenging for their realistic applications. In this work, we have designed and fabricated Al-doped NiO nanosheets for greatly enhanced NO detection at room temperature. Different amounts of Al were doped into two-dimensional (2D) NiO nanosheets via a fast and facile microwave assisted solvent-thermal technique. Sensing tests of the as-fabricated devices indicated that Al doping could significantly affect the gas-sensing properties of the NiO nanosheets due to increased oxygen vacancies as well as the formation of Lewis acid and base sites. When 12 at% of Al was added to the raw materials, the response value of the device to 10 ppm NO was enhanced more than 35 times compared with those of pure NiO nanosheets. In addition, when the amount of Al reached 20 at%, it took only 200 s for the gas sensor to achieve full recovery, which was a breakthrough for room temperature gas sensors based on metal oxides. Above all, the excellent performances of the as-fabricated devices make Al-doped NiO nanosheets a potential candidate for NO sensing applications. This design strategy can also give guidance for designing high-performance gas sensors based on other similar 2D sensing materials.

No abstract

A high performance gas sensor based on a metal phthalocyanine/graphene quantum dot hybrid material was fabricated for NO2 detection at room-temperature.

Three-dimensional free-standing film electrodes have aroused great interest for energy storage devices. However, small volumetric capacity and low operating voltage limit their practical application for large energy storage applications. Herein, a facile and novel nanofoaming process was demonstrated to boost the volumetric electrochemical capacitance of the devices via activation of Ni nanowires to form ultrathin nanosheets and porous nanostructures. The as-designed free-standing Ni@Ni(OH) film electrodes display a significantly enhanced volumetric capacity (462 C/cm at 0.5 A/cm) and excellent cycle stability. Moreover, the as-developed hybrid supercapacitor employed Ni@Ni(OH) film as positive electrode and graphene-carbon nanotube film as negative electrode exhibits a high volumetric capacitance of 95 F/cm (at 0.25 A/cm) and excellent cycle performance (only 14% capacitance reduction for 4500 cycles). Furthermore, the volumetric energy density can reach 33.9 mWh/cm, which is much higher than that of most thin film lithium batteries (1-10 mWh/cm). This work gives an insight for designing high-volume three-dimensional electrodes and paves a new way to construct binder-free film electrode for high-performance hybrid supercapacitor applications.

No abstract