Microwave-assisted synthesis of ZnO doped CeO2 nanoparticles as potential scaffold for highly sensitive nitroaniline chemical sensor

Herein, we report the successful fabrication of highly sensitive, reproducible and reliable nitroaniline chemical sensor based on ZnO doped CeO2 nanoparticles. The ZnO doped CeO2 nanoparticles were synthesized through a simple, facile and rapid microwave-assisted method and characterized by several techniques. The detailed characterizations confirmed that the synthesized nanoparticles were monodisperse and grown in high density and possessing good crystallinity. Further, the synthesized ZnO doped CeO2 nanoparticles were used as efficient electron mediators for the fabrication of high sensitive nitroaniline chemical sensors. The fabricated nitroaniline chemical sensor exhibited very high sensitivity of 550.42 μA mM−1 cm−2 and experimental detection limit of 0.25 mM. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report in which CeO2–ZnO nanoparticles were used as efficient electron mediators for the fabrication of nitroaniline chemical sensors. Thus, presented work demonstrates that ZnO doped CeO2 nanoparticles are potential material to fabricate highly efficient and reliable chemical sensors.