In this paper, a novel ammonia detection hybrid film is proposed based on a graphene oxide (GO)/graphene stack, which shows excellent sensing characteristics at room temperature. It is attributed to the cooperation of GO layer serving as molecular capture layer while graphene serving as conductive layer. GO layer is obtained on chemical vapor deposited graphene film by a simple drop-casting method. The prepared GO/graphene hybrid film is directly transferred to the target substrate without any additional transfer vehicle to reduce possible contamination. The success of the transfer depends on the mechanical strength of GO layer. The thickness of GO layer can scale down to 55 nm while sustaining the transfer process. The best ammonia gas sensing performance is obtained at about 275 nm GO layer thickness and the ammonia detection limit is calculated to be 1.5 ppb. In conclusion, the ammonia gas sensing performance of GO/graphene hybrid film can be significantly improved through GO layer thickness optimization.
Oxygen plasma treatment has been reported as an effective way of improving the response of graphene gas sensors. In this work, a gas sensor based on a composite graphene channel with a layer of pristine graphene (G) at the bottom and an oxygen plasma-treated graphene (OP-G) as a covering layer was reported. The OP-G on top provided oxygen functional groups and serves as the gas molecule grippers, while the as-grown graphene beneath serves as a fast carrier transport path. Thus, the composite channel (OP-G/G) demonstrated significantly improved response in NH3 gas sensing tests compared with the pristine G channel. Moreover, the OP-G/G channel showed faster response and recovering process than the OP-G channel. Since this kind of composite channel is fabricated from chemical vapor deposited graphene and patterned with standard photolithography, the device dimension was much smaller than a gas sensor fabricated from reduced graphene oxide and it is favorable for the integration of a large number of sensing units.
A delay line-type surface acoustic wave (SAW) gas sensor based on p-hexafluoroisopropanol phenyl (HFIPPH) functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) film is developed to detect organophosphorus dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP) vapor (a simulant of chemical nerve agent sarin). Inspired by the transfer process of Cu-based graphene, a uniform and size-controllable HFIPPH-MWCNT film is successfully prepared on the SAW device via a wet-etching transfer method. For the first time, we use the method of measuring the change of the sensor’s insertion loss to achieve the detection of ultra-low concentration DMMP vapor. The designed sensor exhibits a fast response/recovery time about 3 s/50 s, and a low detection limit of 0.1 ppm. Additionally, the stability and selectivity of the sensor and the influence of humidity on its response are evaluated through experiments. The acoustoelectric effect is proved to be the sensing mechanism of the sensor insertion loss response.
Gas-sensing performance of graphene-based material has been investigated widely in recent years. Polyaniline (PANI) has been reported as an effective method to improve ammonia gas sensors’ response. A gas sensor based on a composite of rGO film and protic acid doped polyaniline (PA-PANI) with GO doping is reported in this work. GO mainly provides NH3 adsorption sites, and PA-PANI is responsible for charge transfer during the gas-sensing response process. The experimental results indicate that the NH3 gas response of rGO is enhanced significantly by decorating with PA-PANI. Moreover, a small amount of GO mixed with PA-PANI is beneficial to increase the gas response, which showed an improvement of 262.5% at 25 ppm comparing to no GO mixing in PA-PANI.
In order to meet the requirements of ultra-fast real-time monitoring of sarin simulator with high sensitivity and selectivity, it is of great significance to develop high performance dimethyl methylphonate (DMMP) sensor. Herein, we proposed a DMMP sensor based on p-hexafluoroisopropanol phenyl (HFIPPH) modified self-assembled single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with field effect transistor (FET) structure. The self-assembly method provides a 4 nanometres thick and micron sized SWCNT channel, with high selectivity to DMMP. The proposed SWCNTs-HFIPPH based sensor exhibits remarkably higher response to DMMP than bare SWCNT based gas sensor within only few seconds. The gas sensing response of SWCNTs-HFIPPH based sensor for 1ppm DMMP is 18.2%, and the response time is about 10 seconds. What's more, the gas sensor we proposed here shows excellent selectivity and reproducibility, and the limitation of detection is as low as ppb level. The proposed method lays the foundation for miniaturization and integration of DMMP sensors, expecting to develop detection system for practical sarin sensing application.
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