One step synthesis of PANI/Fe₂O₃ nanocomposites and flexible film for enhanced NH₃ sensing performance at room temperature

Abstract

Novel sea cucumber-shaped polyaniline/ferric oxide (PANI/Fe 2 O 3 ) nanocomposites were synthesized using a simple and efficient one step hydrothermal process, and the nanocomposites were further assembled onto a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) flexible substrate. Through the monitoring of the resistance of the PANI/Fe 2 O 3 nanocomposites thick films and PANI/Fe 2 O 3 -PET flexible sensors, the responses of the sensors to various 100 ppm gases including methanol, triethylamine, aniline and another five gases were obtained. It was found that two kinds of sensors exhibit a high selectivity towards NH 3 . The PANI/Fe 2 O 3 nanocomposites-based sensor has a good response and a low detection limit (0.3 ppm) at room temperature (20±5 °C). It also shows a good linearity relationship in a certain concentration of NH 3 . After assembling into the PANI/Fe 2 O 3 -PET flexible film sensor, the response of the sensor is significantly increased to 6.12 for 100 ppm NH 3 , the detection limit is as low as 0.5 ppm, and the sensor shows good stability and linearity, which is more conducive to the application of such a material in wearable gas sensors.

Flexible Sensors Based on Conductive Polymers

“…PET: camphor sulfonic acid-doped PANI/α-Fe 2 O 3 (PFC) [116], inkjet-printed polyanilinedodecyl benzenesulfonic acid nanoparticles deposited onto screen-printed silver interdigitated electrodes, [117] rGO-PANI hybrids [118], composite nanostructured films, hierarchically nanostructured PANI covering a transparent conducting film of carbon nanotube (CNT) networks, [119] or nontransparent CNT [120] or rGO, [115] S and N co-doped graphene quantum dots-PANI composite film [121], metal oxide-PANI composite (Iron oxide, [122] ferric oxide, [123] tin oxide, [124] zinc oxide [125]), interdigital electrodes carbon based printed on an active PANI film [126]; rambutan-like polyaniline hollow nanosphere and graphene oxide, [127]…”

Recent advances in energy-saving chemiresistive gas sensors: A review

“…Furthermore, PPy has a -NH- group, which can easily interact with NH 3 gas, thereby increasing the electrical resistance and, hence, the gas response. PPy/MnO 2 and PANI/Fe 2 O 3 are other examples of composites used for RT gas-sensing studies [ 191 , 192 ]. Recently, a novel CuO-Chitosan nanocomposite H 2 S gas sensor was introduced by Fajr et al [ 189 ].…”

Recent Development of Hierarchical Metal Oxides Based Gas Sensors: From Gas Sensing Performance to Applications

“…Meanwhile, Zhu et al. [ 183 ] carried out the synthesis of PANI/Fe 2 O 3 nanocomposites. By putting the mixed solution of FeCl 3 ·6H 2 O, aniline, HCl, and deionized water into stainless‐steel autoclave and keeping at 100 °C for 2 h, the sea cucumber‐shaped PANI/Fe 2 O 3 nanocomposites were obtained.…”

“…To achieve the detection of NH 3 at room temperature, researchers have done lots of work and large number of promising sensing materials are obtained. [147,[179][180][181][182][183][184][185][186][187] Among them, the composites of various 1D metal oxide and reduced graphene www.advsustainsys.com oxide received the most widely attention. For example, Guan and co-workers [179] prepared Cu 2 O nanorods decorated by rGO via a two-step synthesis strategy.…”