We present an experimental study on the influence of sub-stoichiometric WO3−x phase upon gas sensing performance. Our work shows that the sub-stoichiometric WO3−x can be used to enhance the low temperature sensing performance.
In this work, the high crystalline copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles were fabricated by a hydrothermal method, and their structural properties were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The sensing results show that CuO nanoparticles exhibit enhanced sensitivity and good selectivity for hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas at a low temperature. There are two working mechanisms involved in the H2S sensing based on CuO nanoparticle sensors. They are the H2S oxidation mechanism and the copper sulphide (CuS) formation mechanism, respectively. The two sensing mechanisms collectively enhance the sensor’s response in the H2S sensing process. The Cu–S bonding is stable and cannot break spontaneously at a low temperature. Therefore, the CuS formation inhibits the sensor’s recovery process. Such inhibition gradually enhances as the gas concentration increases from 0.2 ppm to 5 ppm, and it becomes weaker as the operating temperature rises from 40 °C to 250 °C. The XPS results confirmed the CuS formation phenomenon, and the micro Raman spectra demonstrated that the formation of CuS bonding and its decomposition can be effectively triggered by a thermal effect. Gas-sensing mechanism analysis supplied abundant cognition for the H2S sensing phenomena based on CuO materials.
Bovine serum albumin (BSA)-coated CdTe/ZnS quantum dots (BSA-QDs) were selected to conjugate with folic acid (FA), forming FA-BSA-QDs. This study aims to develop these small FA-BSA-QDs (less than 10 nm) for the diagnosis of cancers in which the FA receptor (FR) is overexpressed. The enhancement of cellular uptake in FR-positive human nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells (KB cells) for FA-BSA-QDs was found by means of confocal fluorescence microscopy under single-photon and two-photon excitation. The uptake enhancement for FA-BSA-QDs was further evaluated by flow-cytometric analysis in 10(4) KB cells, and was about 3 times higher than for BSA-QDs on average. The uptake enhancement was suppressed when KB cells had been pretreated with excess FA, reflecting that the enhancement was mediated by the association of FR at cell membranes with FA-BSA-QDs. When human embryonic kidney cells (293T) (FR-negative cells) and KB cells, respectively, were incubated with FA-BSA-QDs (1 μM) for 40 min, the FA-BSA-QD uptake by 293T cells was much weaker than that by KB cells, demonstrating that FA-BSA-QDs could undergo preferential binding on FR-positive cancer cells. These characteristics suggest that FA-BSA-QDs are potential candidates for cancer diagnosis.
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