Facile synthesis of hexagonal brick-shaped SnO2 and its gas sensing toward triethylamine

•Hexagonal brick-shaped SnO2 (HBSS) was synthesized by using o-phthalic acid.•Well-dispersed HBSS exhibits a good selectivity and response to triethylamine.•HBSS is an efficient material for detecting low-concentration amine gases.

Nanosized tin dioxide was synthesized by one-step method using o-phthalic acid and tin tetrachloride as raw materials. The morphology and structure were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The gas-sensing properties of as-synthesized SnO2 were also investigated. The as-synthesized SnO2 shows hexagonal brick-like shape and its size is about 50 nm. The hexagonal brick-shaped SnO2 (HBSS) exhibits high sensitivity and selectivity to low-concentration triethylamine (TEA) at low operating temperature. The maximum response of the well-dispersed HBSS to 1 ppm and 100 ppm TEA is 3 and 70, respectively. The response and recovery time upon exposure to 1 ppm TEA is 3 s and 9 s, respectively, which suggests that the well-dispersed HBSS is an efficient sensor material for detecting low-concentration triethylamine gas.