Ethanol Sensors Based on Porous In₂O₃ Nanosheet-Assembled Micro-Flowers

Abstract

By controlling the hydrothermal time, porous In2O3 nanosheet-assembled micro-flowers were successfully synthesized by a one-step method. The crystal structure, microstructure, and internal structure of the prepared samples were represented by an x-ray structure diffractometry, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. The characterization results showed that when the hydrothermal time was 8 h, the In2O3 nano materials presented a flower-like structure assembled by In2O3 porous nanosheets. After successfully preparing the In2O3 gas sensor, the gas sensing was fully studied. The results show that the In2O3 gas sensor had an excellent gas sensing response to ethanol, and the material prepared under 8 h hydrothermal conditions had the best gas sensing property. At the optimum working temperature of 270 °C, the highest response value could reach 66, with a response time of 12.4 s and recovery time of 10.4 s, respectively. In addition, the prepared In2O3 gas sensor had a wide detection range for ethanol concentration, and still had obvious response for 500 ppb ethanol. Furthermore, the gas sensing mechanism of In2O3 micro-flowers was also studied in detail.

Keywords

• In₂O₃
• nanosheet-assembled micro-flowers
• hydrothermal method
• ethanol
• gas sensors