A Review on Metal Oxide-Graphene Derivative Nano-Composite Thin Film Gas Sensors

Abstract

Most of the available commercial solid-state gas/vapor sensors are based on metal oxide semiconductors. Metal oxides (MOs) change their conductivity while exposed to gas or vapors ambient can be utilized as gas or vapor sensing materials. In recent days, graphene has attracted tremendous attention owing to its twodimensional structure with an extremely high surface to volume ratio, electron mobility, and thermal conductivity. However, intrinsic graphene is relatively inefficient for the adsorption of gas/vapor molecules. In this regard, graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO), which are graphene species functionalized with different oxygen groups that offer a higher amount of adsorption sites improving the sensitivity of the film. Up to now, many research groups across the globe have reported the promising performance towards gas detection using various GO/rGO-metal oxide nanocomposites. This chapter reviews the composites of graphene oxide or reduced graphene oxide and metal oxides in nanoscale dimensions (0-D, 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D) for gas sensing applications considering two specific focus areas, that is, synthesis of nanocomposites and performance assessment for gas/vapor sensing.

Carbon Nanostructure Embedded Novel Sensor Implementation for Detection of Aromatic Volatile Organic Compounds: An Organized Review

“…Still, pristine graphene is relatively inefficient for the adsorption of VOC molecules. In contrast, its derivatives have more adsorption sites due to the presence of different oxygen groups and hence offer high sensitivity toward VOC molecules of the film . On the other hand, the current–voltage ( I – V ) characteristics for both GO and rGO exhibit ohmic contact, which is suitable for gas-sensing applications …”

Ball-Mill Assisted Green One-Pot Synthesis of ZnO/Graphene Nanocomposite for Selective Electrochemical Sensing of aquatic pollutant 4-nitrophenol

“…Graphene in combination with metal oxides can show synergistic properties unattainable from the individual ones. But in most of the reported metal oxide-graphene nanocomposite preparation, initially graphene is prepared by any means which itself is a multistep process in many procedures and then the metal oxide or its precursor is added to the graphene dispersion, demanding further steps in the nanocomposite formation [14]. One-pot metal oxide -graphene preparation is a rarely successful method [8].…”