Simplified preparation of SnO2 inverse opal for Methanol gas sensing performance

• SnO2 inverse opal was prepared with a simplified opal template method.
• The performance of SnO2 inverse opal sensor to methanol gas was studied.
• SnO2 inverse opal showed excellent response and selectivity to methanol gas.

As a novel structure, inverse opal, with three dimensional periodic macropore and mesopore, huge specific surface area, is promising in highly sensitive gas sensing. In this paper, SnO2 inverse opal was prepared with a simplified polystyrene (PS) opal template cooperating with sol–gel method. The simplified method could spare much work and avoid the operation of the SnO2 inverse opal scraped from microslide. The performance of the SnO2 inverse opal sensor to methanol gas was systemically investigated. The results indicate that the sensing performance of the SnO2 inverse opal sensor to methanol gas is highly improved than traditional sensors. The response of the SnO2 inverse opal sensor is as high as 95 for 500 ppm methanol gas detection. In the range from 1 to 1000 ppm, the SnO2 inverse opal sensor shows fine linear relationship with the growth of the methanol gas concentrations.

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