High Carbon-high Porous SiOC Glasses for Room Temperature NO2 Sensing

Porous SiOC is proposed as suitable material for gas sensing applications, exploiting its high surface area and high carbon content. The typical high electrical resistance of SiOC, which prevented till now its exploitation to develop conductometric devices, is solved through a proper control of its carbon content and thermal treatments. The developed gas sensors showed high sensitivity to NO2 at room temperature and up to 400 °C. We believe that this new kind of nanoporous ceramic gas sensors can give a new perspective for application of ceramic materials in gas sensing field.