Synthesis and application of DNA-templated silver nanowires for ammonia gas sensing

The DNA-templated silver nanowires have been synthesized by a simple chemical reduction method in solution and used for gas detection of ammonia. Lactic acid as a stabilizer in reduction bath can effectively decrease the nonspecific deposition of metallic silver by slowing down the reaction. In the present experiments, the highly conductive DNA-templated silver nanowires consisting of grains improve the surface area/volume ratio, which can increase the adsorption of ammonia gas molecules. The results of gas sensing measurements indicate that these nanowires show a high selectivity to ammonia, a quick gas response (~ 10 s) and a fast recovery (~ 7 s). Moreover, the possible gas sensing mechanism has been discussed in this paper. Therefore, we found that the DNA-templated silver nanowires reported here might be a potential candidate of gas sensing materials for ammonia gas detection.