Ethanol chemi-sensor: Evaluation of structural, optical and sensing properties of CuO nanosheets

In this paper, CuO nanosheets were synthesized via hydrothermal process and efficiently utilized as redox mediator for the fabrication of efficient ethanol chemi-sensor. The morphological investigation of synthesized CuO products were analyzed by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) which confirmed that the synthesized products are sheet-shaped and are grown in large quantity. The detailed structural, compositional and optical characterizations of the synthesized nanosheets were done by X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and UV–vis spectroscopy, respectively which confirmed that the obtained nanosheets are well-crystalline pure CuO and possessing good optical properties. The fabricated ethanol sensor based on CuO nanosheet exhibits good sensitivity (~0.9722 µA·cm–2.mM–1) and lower detection limit (0.143 mM), with linearity (R = 0.7806) in short response time (10.0 s).