Synthesis of Au/SnO2 nanostructures allowing process variable control

Abstract

Theoretical advances in science are inherently time-consuming to realise in engineering, since their practical application is hindered by the inability to follow the theoretical essence. Herein, we propose a new method to freely control the time, cost, and process variables in the fabrication of a hybrid featuring Au nanoparticles on a pre-formed SnO 2 nanostructure. The above advantages, which were divided into six categories, are proven to be superior to those achieved elsewhere, and the obtained results are found to be applicable to the synthesis and functionalisation of other nanostructures. Furthermore, the reduction of the time-gap between science and engineering is expected to promote the practical applications of numerous scientific theories. Currently, although the boundaries of the academic area do not seem to be important, a clear-cut borderline separates pure science 1,2 , which explores the principles of nature, from applied engineering 3,4 , which deals with real-life processes. This separation largely reflects the corresponding difference in the utilised approaches, highlighting the fact that the application of new theories to real-world problems is difficult and time-consuming. For this reason, scientific heritage newly published every day is often discarded without actually being phenomenologically expressed. On the contrary, our daily life presents numerous strange phenomena that cannot be scientifically explained because of the lack of a proper academic background. That is, there may be cases of a theory not backed by experimental results or results not explained by any theory. As mentioned above, science and engineering can be viewed to be in a state of temporal hysteresis, and the search for ways of narrowing the corresponding time gap should therefore be regarded as a task of high significance. For example, Shi et al. reported the hetero-structured AgBr/ZnO photocatalyst, but their synthesis requires long reaction times and complex multi-step processes 5. Ellis et al. also proposed the morphology control of hydrothermally prepared LiFePO4 with long reaction times and post heat treatment processes 6. In other words, engineering techniques that can easily and economically confirm competitive scientific theories are shortcuts that can reduce the time cost of the practical application of science and achieve unique and meaningful results. Unluckily, because of the atmosphere that emphasises originality in research, one tends to think that only complicated and difficult-to-perform experiments can produce unique results. However, the reason why we cannot conclude that it is preconceived is that many of the results have received good evaluation in the meantime. For example, when studies on various nanostructures 7-10 performed so far are divided into those dealing with morphology 11,12 , crystallography 13,14 , and elemental composition 15,16 control, one can recognise that these investigations have a certain research value when the desired shape, microstructure, or function has been fully achieved....

Simulation of gas sensing mechanism of porous metal oxide semiconductor sensor based on finite element analysis

“…It has been reported 6 that the interconnected micropores and abundant active sites of PdO-doped three-dimensional ZnFe2O4 nanospheres equip the sensor with faster response and selectivity to target gas. Reference 7 found that SnO 2 nanospheres with a three-dimensional hierarchical structure have an ultra-high response to ethanol due to the abundant active sites 8 on the sensor surface. However, the preparation of resistive MOS gas sensors faces the problem of low efficiency and high complexity 9 .…”