Raspberry-like SnO2 hollow nanostructure as a high response sensing material of gas sensor toward n-butanol gas.

The raspberry-like SnO 2 hollow nanostructure was synthesized by a simple hydrothermal method. The composition, microstructure, morphology, surface area and chemical states are investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), N 2 adsorption-desorption and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), respectively. The characterization results show that the raspberry-like SnO 2 with a diameter of about 60 nm is composed of numerous SnO 2 nanoparticles with grain size about 8 nm. The raspberry-like SnO 2 was used as sensing material for gas sensor to detect n-butanol gas. The gas-sensing properties including gas response, selectivity, response-recovery time, repeatability, stability and dynamic response character were investigated carefully. It can be found that the response value of the sensor towards 100 ppm n-butanol gas was 303.49 at the low operating temperature of 160 °C. And the detection limit as low as 1 ppm. All results demonstrate the potential of using raspberry-like SnO 2 for n-butanol gas detection. At the same time, the possible formation mechanism and gas-sensing mechanism were also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]