Novel gas sensoring materials based on CuS hollow spheres

CuS hollow spheres with diameters of 200 nm and a wall thickness of 30 nm have been synthesized in a large scale via surfactant micelle-template inducing reaction. Due to the special morphology, the hollow spheres showed excellent sensing properties to ethanol, including high sensitivity, rapid response rate and fast recovery. The gain in sensitivity is attributed to both the intrinsic phase-transition property of copper sulfide and their hollow architecture that promotes analyte diffusion and increases the available active surface area.