Portable
and sensitive mixed-potential type solid-state electrolyte
(MPSE) gas sensors can detect exhaled biomarkers in a noninvasive
and inexpensive way, which is significant for convenient disease diagnosis
and saving medical resources. However, high working temperature is
still one of the main bottlenecks for hindering MPSE gas sensors’
applications in disease diagnosis. Here, we, for the first time, developed
and fabricated new room-temperature MPSE gas sensors utilizing K2Fe4O7 electrolyte and Ni/Fe–MOF
(Ni/Fe clusters are coordinated with 1,4-H2BDC) sensing
electrodes (SEs) for the detection of ppb-level NO. Among different
MOF SEs, the sensor attached with the Ni–MOF SE presents the
highest NO sensitivities. This is attributed to a reducing oxygen
reduction reaction activity and enhancing NO electrochemical catalytic
reaction activity, verified by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical
impedance spectroscopy (EIS) tests. In addition, the presented sensor
also shows a low detection limit (20 ppb), fast response/recovery
characteristic (17 s/6 s to 50 ppb NO), excellent selectivity, acceptable
repeatability, and long-term stability of 34 days to NO at 25 °C
and 60%RH. Simultaneously, the mechanism of humidity effect on the
sensing performance was investigated by EIS and CV tests. Our work
provides new insight into the development of room-temperature solid-state
electrolyte gas sensors based on the mixed-potential mechanism and
enlarges the potential application domain.