The decoration of Nb-doped TiO2 microspheres by reduced graphene oxide for enhanced CO gas sensing

Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was used to improve the CO sensing properties of Nb-doped TiO2 (TiO2:Nb) microspheres by an improved ultrasonic spray pyrolysis deposition method. The responses of the sensor dramatically increased as the CO gas concentration increased from 100 to 1000 ppm, which indicated that rGO/TiO2:Nb-based sensor had a wide detection range for CO gas. Moreover, the conductivity of sensor based on the rGO/TiO2:Nb would be greatly improved than that of sensors without decoration by rGO. The enhanced gas sensing performance of the rGO/TiO2:Nb can be attributed to two reasons. Firstly, rGO could facilitate charge transport from TiO2 to graphene which provided a preferential pathway for the charge currents. Secondly, the decorated TiO2 by rGO could provide more active sites such as oxygen vacancy (VO) which could capture electrons from the conductance band and form a space-charge region.