Regular ArticleHighly stable hydrazine chemical sensor based on vertically-aligned ZnO nanorods grown on electrode

•Development of high-performance hydrazine chemical sensor electrodes.•ZnO NRs on Ag electrode provided high surface and easy substrate penetration structures.•Sensor showed an excellent sensitivity, long-term stability, and good reproducibility.•The sensor has potential for detection of hydrazine in water.

Herein, we report a binder-free, stable, and high-performance hydrazine chemical sensor based on vertically aligned zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO NRs), grown on silver (Ag) electrode via low-temperature solution route. The morphological characterizations showed that the NRs were grown vertically in high density and possess good crystallinity. The as-fabricated hydrazine chemical sensors showed an excellent sensitivity of 105.5  μA μM−1 cm−2, a linear range up to 98.6 μM, and low detection limit of 0.005 μM. It also showed better long-term stability, good reproducibility and selectivity. Furthermore, the fabricated electrodes were evaluated for hydrazine detection in water samples. We found the approach of directly growing nanostructures as a key factor for enhanced sensing performance of our electrodes, which effectively transfers electron from ZnO NRs to conductive Ag electrode. Thus it holds future prospective applications as binder-free, cost-effective, and stable sensing devices fabrication.

Graphical abstractDownload high-res image (223KB)Download full-size image