Room temperature high performance NH3 sensor based on GO-rambutan-like polyaniline hollow nanosphere hybrid assembled to flexible PET substrate

The rambutan-like polyaniline hollow nanosphere (PANIHs) and graphene oxide (GO)-PANIHs hybrid are prepared by in-situ chemical oxidative polymerization method and are assembled to the high performance gas sensor based on flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate with no extra electrode required for NH3 detection at room temperature. The PANIHs and GO-rambutan-like polyaniline hollow nanosphere (GPA) hybrids with different weight percentages of GO (0.2 wt.%-2 wt.%) are characterized by FESEM, TEM, FTIR, XRD, XPS and Raman. The gas sensing performance of the assembled sensors indicates that the sensor based on GPA0.5 exhibits the best sensitivity towards 10 ppm NH3 at room temperature. The present sensor also exhibits response value of approximately 31.8-100 ppm NH3, acceptable response/recovery time (102 s/186 s), wonderful selectivity and ultra-low detection limit of 50 ppb. This enhanced sensing performance is related to the rambutan-like polyaniline hollow nanosphere nanostructure and synergetic effects of GO and PANIHs. The excellent sensing performance device based on GPA0.5 and flexible PET substrate is expected to hold great promise for developing wearable flexible electronics.