Tin oxide nanoparticles anchored on ordered mesoporous carbon for efficient acetone sensing

Rationally designed combinations of semiconductor metal oxides (SMO) and carbon materials can lead to the development of sensing materials with excellent gas performance. Herein, SnO2 nanoparticles (NPs) decorated on ordered mesoporous carbon (CMK-3) nanorods were synthetized by solvothermal and high-temperature calcination methods. Various characterization and gas sensing tests indicated that the resulting one-dimensional (1D) self-assembled SnO2@CMK-3 composite had a large specific surface area (88.02 m2/g) and excellent gas sensing performance. Specifically, at optimal working temperature, the as-prepared SnO2@CMK-3 sensor had a high response (122.1), low limit of detection, good linear fitting (R2 = 0.9892), rapid response/recovery time (5/27 s) towards 50 ppm acetone. Meanwhile, by detecting six gases, including acetone, ammonia, formaldehyde, xylene, triethylamine, and ethanol, it was found that the SnO2@CMK-3 sensor showed good selectivity to acetone. The unique nanostructure, large specific surface area, high oxygen vacancy content, and the formation of heterojunctions accounted for the good performance to acetone. These results highlighted the potential application of the SnO2@CMK-3 composite for the detection of acetone gas and presented a promising approach to prepare SMO@carbon composites for VOCs detection. [Display omitted] •SnO2@CMK-3 was synthesized using a facile solvothermal method.•The utilization of SnO2@CMK-3 for excellent acetone sensing was firstly reported.•The mechanism underlying of the sensing performance was thoroughly examined.