Synthesis Of Porous Co3o4-Zno And Its Performance For Sensitive Ethanol Detection

Ethanol detection has urgent application needs in traffic safety, biomedical and food safety fields. Porous Co3O4-ZnO with nitrogen-doped carbon (Co-Zn-O/NC) were successfully fabricated by pyrolysis bimetallic precursor. The as-prepared Co-Zn-O/NC exhibited high response, reliable reversibility, and good selectivity towards ethanol. Specifically, the response value of the Co50Zn50-O/NC is as high as 49.2 towards 50 ppm ethanol at 400 degrees C which is better than pure Co3O4 and ZnO. The results were attributed to the porous structure and the p-n heterojunction formed between Co3O4 and ZnO. In particular, the continuous Co3O4, which acts as the conductive channel, leads to a relatively lower resistance while ZnO greatly enhances gas sensing properties. This simple synthetic route and design procedure will provide ideas for the development of metal oxide-based semiconductor gas sensors.