ZnO/CuO/Al2O3 composites for chloroform detection

• ZnO/CuO/Al2O3 composites have been prepared and fabricated into sensors.
• The sensors can detect 1 ppm chloroform and show excellent repeatability.
• CuO plays a critical role as a reactant on chloroform sensing process.

In this work, ZnO/CuO/Al2O3 composites were prepared via a simple coprecipitation and a hydrothermal method followed by a calcination process. The as-prepared composites were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) etc. Moreover, gas sensors based on ZnO/CuO/Al2O3 were fabricated. It revealed that the sensor with certain metal ratio exhibited a fast and remarkable response to chloroform and was able to detect low concentration of chloroform down to 1 ppm in 20 s. The gas sensing mechanism was also discussed.

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