Facile hydrothermal synthesis of Ti3C2Tx-TiO2 nanocomposites for gaseous volatile organic compounds detection at room temperature.

The gaseous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) sensors with high-selectivity and low-power consumption have been expected for practical applications in environmental monitoring and disease diagnosis. Herein, we demonstrate a room-temperature VOCs gas sensor with enhanced performance based on Ti 3 C 2 T x -TiO 2 nanocomposites. The Ti 3 C 2 T x -TiO 2 nanocomposites with regular morphology are successfully synthesized via a facile one-step hydrothermal synthesis strategy by using Ti 3 C 2 T x itself as titanium source. Attributed to the formation of interfacial heterojunctions and the modulation of carrier density, the Ti 3 C 2 T x -TiO 2 sensor exhibits about 1.5–12.6 times enhanced responses for the detection of various VOCs at room temperature than pure MXene sensor. Moreover, the nanocomposite sensor has better response to hexanal, both an air pollutant and a typical lung cancer biomarker. The gas response of the Ti 3 C 2 T x -TiO 2 sensor towards 10 ppm hexanal is about 3.4%. The hexanal gas sensing results display that the nanocomposite sensor maintains a high signal-to-noise ratio and the lower detection limit to hexanal gas is as low as 217 ppb. Due to the low power consumption and easy fabrication process, the Ti 3 C 2 T x -TiO 2 nanocomposite sensor is promising for application in IoT environmental monitoring as well as real-time health monitoring. [Display omitted] • Ti 3 C 2 T x -TiO 2 nanocomposites were synthesized by one-step hydrothermal strategy. • The nanocomposite sensor exhibited enhanced responses for various VOCs. • Ti 3 C 2 T x -TiO 2 sensor showed good selectivity to hexenal with 217 ppb detection limit. • The enhancement is attributed to the Schottky junction and synergy of the hybridization. • The elaborated gas sensor can operate at room temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]