Plasma-Sputtered Growth of Ni-Pd Bimetallic Nanoparticles on Carbon Nanotubes for Toluene Sensing
Selene Acosta,
Juan Casanova-Chafer,
Eduard Llobet,
Axel Hemberg,
Mildred Quintana,
Carla Bittencourt
Affiliations
Selene Acosta
Centro de Investigación en Ciencias de la Salud y Biomedicina, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Av. Sierra Leona 550, Lomas de San Luis, San Luis Potosí 78210, Mexico
Juan Casanova-Chafer
Chimie des Interactions Plasma Surface, Institute for Materials Science and Engineering, Université de Mons, Place du Parc 23, 7000 Mons, Belgium
Eduard Llobet
Departament d’Enginyeria Electronica, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Països Catalans 26, 43007 Tarragona, Spain
Axel Hemberg
Materia Nova Research Center, 7000 Mons, Belgium
Mildred Quintana
Centro de Investigación en Ciencias de la Salud y Biomedicina, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Av. Sierra Leona 550, Lomas de San Luis, San Luis Potosí 78210, Mexico
Carla Bittencourt
Chimie des Interactions Plasma Surface, Institute for Materials Science and Engineering, Université de Mons, Place du Parc 23, 7000 Mons, Belgium
The properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be effectively tailored by decorating their surface with metal nanoparticles. For the decoration, first plasma functionalization is used to add oxygen chemical groups to the CNTs surface. Afterwards, the Ox-CNTs are decorated with Ni-Pd bimetallic nanoparticles using plasma sputtering deposition, a clean, fast, and environmentally friendly functionalization method. The grafted oxygen groups serve as nucleation sites for the growth of the bimetallic nanoparticles. Finally, the Ni-Pd nanoparticle-decorated CNTs are assessed as a sensing layer for the detection of toluene.
