Hydrothermal Synthesis of WO3·0.33H2O Nanorod Bundles as a Highly Sensitive Cyclohexene Sensor

Abstract

In this paper, WO3·0.33H2O nanorods were prepared through a simple hydrothermal method using p-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) as an auxiliary reagent. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images showed that the products with PABA addition were orthorhombic WO3·0.33H2O, which were mainly composed of nanorods with different crystal planes. The sensing performance of WO3·0.33H2O nanorod bundles prepared by the addition of PABA (100 ppm cyclohexene, Ra/Rg = 50.6) was found to be better than the WO3 synthesized without PABA (100 ppm cyclohexene, Ra/Rg = 1.3) for the detection of cyclohexene. The new synthesis route and sensing characteristics of as-synthesized WO3·0.33H2O nanorods revealed a promising candidate for the preparation of the cost-effective gas sensors.

Keywords

• hydrothermal
• WO3·0.33H2O
• p-aminobenzoic acid
• nanorod bundles
• cyclohexene
• gas sensing