Preparation of Pr-doped SnO2 hollow nanofibers by electrospinning method and their gas sensing properties

• Pr-doped SnO2 hollow nanofibers were fabricated by electrospinning.
• The crystal structures, surface morphology, chemical state and gas sensing performance were investigated.
• The Pr-doped SnO2 hollow structure exhibited good gas-sensing properties to ethanol at 300 °C.
• The relationships between response time (recovery time) and temperature, response time (recovery time) and concentration were investigated.
• A sensor mechanism of hollow nanofibers depend on temperature was discussed.

Pure and Pr-doped SnO2 hollow nanofibers were fabricated through a facile single capillary electrospinning and followed by calcination. The properties of as-synthesized nanofibers were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Compared with pure fibers, Pr-doped SnO2 nanofibers exhibited excellent ethanol sensing properties at the optimum temperature of 300 °C. Maximum sensing response to ethanol was received in the fibers with 0.6 wt% Pr. The relationships between response time (recovery time) and temperature, response time (recovery time) and concentration were investigated. The results demonstrated that the high response and relatively short response/recovery time were related to surface area, adsorbed oxygen species and oxygen vacancies.

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