Regular ArticleControllable construction of multishelled p-type cuprous oxide with enhanced formaldehyde sensing
Graphical abstract
A controllable multishelled Cu2O nanoparticles-based sensing platform exhibits an excellent response/recovery formaldehyde behavior at a working temperature of 120 °C.
Introduction
As widely used sensing materials in chemical sensors, metal oxide semiconductors (MOSs) are characterized by a high sensitivity and rapid response to the surrounding environment [1]. To further satisfy the strict requirements of high-performance gas sensors (ultrahigh sensitivity, rapid response/recovery speed, low power consumption, remarkable selectivity and excellent stability), a large number of studies have been continuously conducted [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. In contrast to n-type MOSs, most p-type oxide semiconductors (Co3O4, NiO, Mn3O4, CuO, Cu2O, Cr2O3, etc.) have been widely used as good catalysts to facilitate the selective detection of various volatile organic compounds (VOCs) [7]. However, when the morphologies are identical to each other, the responses of p-type (Sp) and n-type (Sn) MOS-based gas sensors have a square relationship (Sn = Sp2) [8], which limits the widespread application of p-type MOSs.
Because of their nanoarchitectures (large surface area, low density, ease of interior core functionalization), MOS materials with yolk–shell structures have drawn great attention in the fields of biomedicine, energy storage, nanoreactors, catalysts, and sensors [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]. Compared to a single-shelled structure, multishelled hollow micro/nanostructured materials most likely exhibit enhanced properties over their counterparts for practical applications [14], [15], [16]. Bing and coworkers reported double-shelled SnO2 nanostructures that showed enhanced toluene sensing performance over that of single-shelled and solid structures [17]. Wang et al. synthesized Cu2O multishelled hollow submicron Cu2O spheres and demonstrated the best photocatalytic properties among three kinds of Cu2O spheres (single-shelled hollow spheres, multishelled hollow spheres and multishelled porous spheres) [18]. The design of multishelled structures always ensures available space and active sites, which are desirable in a large range of applications.
As a typical p-type semiconductor, cuprous oxide (Cu2O) has been widely used in the fields such as solar cells, catalysis, lithium-ion batteries, and sensors [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26]. Recently, Cu2O has been synthesized into various morphologies and their shape-dependent properties of these morphologies have been investigated [27], [18], [28], [29]. However, few reports have focused on multishelled Cu2O nanostructures for gas sensing applications.
With this in mind, a simple hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) concentration-dependent method is presented to control the inner structure of Cu2O spheres. The tunable hollow multishelled Cu2O spheres with sufficient void space are expected to supply effective active sites for gas adsorption. The relationship between the shell number, and the formaldehyde (HCHO) sensing performance was also investigated. To enhance the HCHO performance, the focus of this study is on the morphological effects of p-type Cu2O on gas sensing performance.
Section snippets
Chemical materials
Cupric sulfate pentahydrate (CuSO4·5H2O, 99.0%), CTAB (C19H42BrN, 99.0%), l-ascorbic acid (VC, C6H8O6, 99.7%) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH, 99.0%) were all purchased from Beijing Chemical Works and used in the preparation process without any further purification. In addition, deionized water (DI, 18.0 MΩ·cm−1) and ethanol (C2H5OH, 99.8%) were used as precursors in the experiment.
Chemical synthesis
Synthesis of Cu2O NPs with single-, double-, triple-, and quadruple-shelled spheres: A simple synthesis procedure is
Structural and morphological characteristics
In this work, the CTAB multilamellar vesicles were used as soft templates to control the shell number of Cu2O spheres by regulating the amount of CTAB with the assistance of VC (Fig. 1). Notably, CTAB may be used as the capping agent and the soft template when the concentration of CTAB is low and relatively high, respectively [32]. First, when the solution was heated to 60 °C, CTAB micelles appeared, and Cu2+ electrostatically reacted with the Br− that was generated from CTAB, resulting in the
Conclusion
In this work, according to previous work, the shell number of a hollow cuprous oxide (Cu2O) sphere is conveniently controlled using hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) concentration [30]. Cu2+ was successfully converted into single-, double-, triple-, and quadruple-shelled hollow Cu2O spheres at the nanoscale (100–450 nm). Moreover, a clear principle model was proposed to demonstrate the growth mechanism of multishelled nanospheres. Cu2O has been reported to be used in gas sensing,
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation Committee (NSFC, Grant No. 61673191) and the High Tech Project of Jilin Province (No. 20180414025GH).
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