Instability controlled synthesis of tin oxide nanofibers and their gas sensing properties

• Tin oxide nanofibers were deposited at different instability controlled electrospinning conditions.
• Controlled conditions were obtained by simulating the three major jet instabilities involved in the electrospinning process.
• The deposited fiber mats were characterized to study the morphological and gas sensing properties.
• Branched structure obtained due to axisymmetric instabilities exhibited highest sensitivity towards ethanol vapors.

Instability dependent electrospinning process has been controlled to obtain tin oxide nanofibers with morphological variation. The effect of spinning parameters such as viscosity, conductivity, flow rate, distance and applied voltage on growth rate of different instabilities was simulated and different deposition conditions were defined from the simulation results. The structural morphology was analyzed using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron microscope (SEM). The sensing behavior of different structures was investigated. The branched structure obtained due to axisymmetric instabilities exhibited best sensing performance owing to high surface to volume ratio.