Electrophoretically deposited nanostructured PdO thin film for room temperature amperometric H2 sensing

In the present work, economical and facile hydrothermal sol-gel method is employed for the synthesis of palladium oxide (PdO) nanoparticles. Uniform thin film of PdO nanoparticles are fabricated using Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) set-up. The crystal structure, surface framework, shape and size of PdO nanoparticles are determined using X-ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) respectively. An optical band-gap of 1.9 eV is observed using UV-Visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy. Amperometric sensing of hydrogen gas is studied using PdO thin film as working electrode and characteristics properties have been obtained for different hydrogen (H2)/Argon (Ar) gas concentrations using potentiostat/galvanostat Autolab instrument at room temperature. The PdO nanoparticles based amperometric hydrogen gas sensor shows high sensitivity of 0.222 μA/%H2 with fast response and recovery time.