Ultraviolet Light-Assisted Copper Oxide Nanowires Hydrogen Gas Sensor

Abstract

We fabricated copper oxide nanowires (CuO NWs) ultraviolet (UV) light-assisted hydrogen gas sensor. The fabricated sensor shows promising sensor response behavior towards 100 ppm of H2 at room temperature and elevated temperature at 100 °C when exposed to UV light (3.0 mW/cm2). One hundred-cycle device stability test has been performed, and it is found that for sample elevated at 100 °C, the UV-activated sample achieved stability in the first cycle as compared to the sample without UV irradiation which needed about 10 cycles to achieve stability at the initial stage, whereas the sample tested at room temperature was able to stabilize with the aid of UV irradiation. This indicates that with the aid of UV light, after some “warming up” time, it is possible for the conventional CuO NW sensor which normally work at elevated temperature to function at room temperature because UV source is speculated to play a dominant role to increase the interaction of the surface of CuO NWs and hydrogen gas molecules absorbed after the light exposure.

Advanced development of metal oxide nanomaterials for H2gas sensing applications

“…In the actual detection process, the ratio of the magnitude of the current can also be used as a representation of sensitivity, such as I a /I g , 111 ∆I/I a , 112 etc. The sensitivity of the gas sensor is closely related to the size of the effective area of the gas sensor and the number of surficial active sites.…”

“…For instance, CuO nanocrystals were grown on copper foil by thermal oxidation at 600 o C. 111 Similar to other vapor deposition technologies, the morphology and structure of products resulted by thermal evaporation are affected by working parameters such as temperature, carrier gas, evaporation source, catalyst, and pressure. San et al 158 prepared ZnO nanorods with different morphologies by controlling evaporation temperature and grow time.…”

A Highly Sensitive and Room Temperature CNTs/SnO2/CuO Sensor for H2S Gas Sensing Applications

“…There are many sources of hydrogen sulfide, usually as a product of the natural decomposition process of certain chemical reactions and protein and some impurities which exist in various kinds of production processes, such as the mining and non-ferrous metal smelting, sulfur-oil exploration, rubber and sugar industry, excavation of lowtemperature coking coal, and treatment of swamps, canals, and sewers. Hydrogen sulfide is a harmful gas for human health [26][27][28][29][30][31]. Even low concentrations of hydrogen sulfide also can damage the human sense of smell.…”

GLAD Magnetron Sputtered Ultra-Thin Copper Oxide Films for Gas-Sensing Application

“…Generally, a gas sensor consists of gas-sensitive films and gas sensor substrate with electrodes, a package, and front-end electronic circuits. The gas-sensitive layer can be realized based on various materials, including organic compounds (e.g., phthalocyanines [2,3]) and metal oxides [4] (e.g., WO 3 [5,6], TiO 2 [7,8], SnO 2 [9,10], In 2 O 3 [11,12], Fe 2 O 3 [13,14], MoO 3 [13,15], ZnO [16][17][18], CuO [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]). The most common methods for metal oxide depositions are magnetron sputtering [29,30], sol-gel [31,32], thermal oxidation [33,34], hydrothermal techniques [35,36], the spray pyrolysis technique [37,38], and the microwave-assisted method [39,40].…”