Tailoring the selectivity of ultralow-power heterojunction gas sensors by noble metal nanoparticle functionalization
Lupan, Oleg; Ababii, Nicolai; Santos-Carballal, David; Terasa, Maik Ivo; Magariu, Nicolae; Zappa, Dario; Comini, Elisabetta; Pauporté, Thierry; Siebert, Leonard; Faupel, Franz; Vahl, Alexander; Hansen, Sandra; de Leeuw, Nora H.; Adelung, Rainer
(2021) Nano Energy, volume 88, pp. 1 - 15
(Article)
Abstract
Heterojunctions are used in solar cells and optoelectronics applications owing to their excellent electrical and structural properties. Recently, these energy-efficient systems have also been employed as sensors to distinguish between individual gases within mixtures. Through a simple and versatile functionalization approach using noble metal nanoparticles, the sensing properties of heterojunctions
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can be controlled at the nanoscopic scale. This work reports the nanoparticle surface functionalization of TiO2/CuO/Cu2O mixed oxide heterostructures, where the gas sensing selectivity of the material is tuned to achieve versatile sensors with ultra-low power consumption. Functionalization with Ag or AgPt-nanoclusters (5–15 nm diameter), changed the selectivity from ethanol to butanol vapour, whereas Pd-nanocluster functionalization shifts the selectivity from the alcohols to hydrogen. The fabricated sensors show excellent low power consumption below 1 nW. To gain insight into the selectivity mechanism, density functional theory (DFT) calculations have been carried out to simulate the adsorption of H2, C2H5OH and n-C4H9OH at the noble metal nanoparticle decorated ternary heterostructure interface. These calculations also show a decrease in the work function by ~2.6 eV with respect to the pristine ternary heterojunctions. This work lays the foundation for the production of a highly versatile array of sensors of ultra-low power consumption with applications for the detection of individual gases in a mixture.
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Keywords: Gas sensing, Heterojunctions, Low-energy, Nanolayered materials, Semiconductor oxides, Ultralow power, Taverne, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, General Materials Science, Electrical and Electronic Engineering
ISSN: 2211-2855
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Note: Funding Information: The authors thank the WTSH and the EUSH for partially funding this project BAEW with ( LPW-E/1.1.2/1486 ), Germany. This research was sponsored in part by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme (SPS) under grant G5634 “Advanced Electro-Optical Chemical Sensors” AMOXES. Dr. Lupan gratefully acknowledges PSL University, Chimie-ParisTech for invited professor positions in 2018 and 2019, CNRS Council for support as expert scientist at IRCP Chimie ParisTech, Paris, France. This research was sponsored partially by the German Research Foundation (DFG-Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Germany) under the schemes SFB1261 , SFB1461 & AD 183/16–1 . This work was financially supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG, Germany) via the research unit FOR 2093 "Memristive devices for neuronal systems" through project A2. The authors would like to thank Dr. Oleksandr Polonskyi for the technical assistance and for fruitful discussion. This work has used the ARCHER UK National Supercomputing Service ( http://www.archer.ac.uk ) provided via our membership of the UK's HEC Materials Chemistry Consortium, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC grant EP/R029431 ). Work was also undertaken on ARC4, part of the High-Performance Computing facilities at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. All data created during this research is provided in full in the results section of this paper. Funding Information: David Santos-Carballal received his BSc in Chemistry from University of Havana, Cuba, in 2007 and completed his MRes and PhD at University College London, UK. He was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Cardiff University and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Chemistry of the University of Leeds, where he uses density functional theory-based calculations to understand the solid state and surface chemistry of materials for catalysis and energy applications. Dr Santos-Carballal was awarded a prestigious Postdoctoral Fellowship by the DST and NRF of South Africa in 2016, to carry out research at University of Limpopo. https://eps.leeds.ac.uk/chemistry Funding Information: The authors thank the WTSH and the EUSH for partially funding this project BAEW with (LPW-E/1.1.2/1486), Germany. This research was sponsored in part by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme (SPS) under grant G5634 ?Advanced Electro-Optical Chemical Sensors? AMOXES. Dr. Lupan gratefully acknowledges PSL University, Chimie-ParisTech for invited professor positions in 2018 and 2019, CNRS Council for support as expert scientist at IRCP Chimie ParisTech, Paris, France. This research was sponsored partially by the German Research Foundation (DFG-Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Germany) under the schemes SFB1261, SFB1461 & AD 183/16?1. This work was financially supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG, Germany) via the research unit FOR 2093 ?Memristive devices for neuronal systems? through project A2. The authors would like to thank Dr. Oleksandr Polonskyi for the technical assistance and for fruitful discussion. This work has used the ARCHER UK National Supercomputing Service (http://www.archer.ac.uk) provided via our membership of the UK's HEC Materials Chemistry Consortium, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC grant EP/R029431). Work was also undertaken on ARC4, part of the High-Performance Computing facilities at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. All data created during this research is provided in full in the results section of this paper. Publisher Copyright: © 2021
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