All-carbon fiber-based chemical sensor: Improved reversible NO2 reaction kinetics

[Display omitted] •Novel all-carbon fiber-based NO2 sensor was fabricated for reliable environmental monitoring. Both RGO fiber and CNT fiber were synthesized by wet-spinning process, which is facile and compatible with large-scale production.•Unique sensing architectures of 1D graphene fiber were achieved with nitrogen doping for NO2 sensors. Highly conductive nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide (RGO) fiber was achieved with wrinkled surface morphology.•CNT fibers were firstly demonstrated as heating networks for reversible NO2 reaction. The CNT fibers with high electrical conductivity and mechanical stability are suitable for heating element to control the operating temperature of sensor. All-carbon fiber-based chemiresistor is fabricated by assembling reduced graphene oxide (RGO) fiber and carbon nanotube (CNT) fiber as reversible NO2 sensing layer and flexible heater, respectively. Both graphene oxide (GO) and CNT fibers were synthesized by wet-spinning technique facilitating lyotropic nematic liquid crystal (LC) property. Randomly entangled CNT fiber-based heater, which is embedded in one surface of colorless polyimide (cPI) film with thickness of ˜200 μm, exhibits high bending stability and heating property up to 100 °C. Single reduced graphene oxide (RGO) fiber obtained after heat treatment at 900 °C in H2/N2 ambient was integrated on the CNT fiber-embedded cPI heater, thereby establishing a new type of all-carbon fiber sensing platform. As a result, accelerated NO2 adsorption and desorption kinetics were achieved with RGO fiber at an elevated temperature. In particular, a 9.22-fold enhancement in desorption kinetic (kdes = 8.85 × 10–3 s–1) was observed at 100 °C compared with the desorption kinetic (kdes = 0.96 × 10–3 s–1) at 50 °C, which was attributed to the effective heating by CNT fiber networks. This work pioneered a research on the use of emerging carbonaceous fibers for potential application in wearable chemical detectors.