The gas sensor utilizing polyaniline/ MoS2 nanosheets/ SnO2 nanotubes for the room temperature detection of ammonia

•Polyaniline is composited with MoS2 nanosheet-coated electrospun SnO2 nanotubes.•A highly selective NH3 sensing platform is developed at room temperature.•Good sensing performance of excellent selectivity, high response, favorable repeatability and acceptable flexibility.•The mechanism connected with the enhancing properties was also investigated and presented. In this work, we developed a NH3 gas sensor based on polyaniline (PANI) composited with MoS2 nanosheet-coated SnO2 nanotubes (PMS) via electrostatic spinning, hydrothermal route and in-situ polymerization technique. The morphologies, nanostructures and compositions of the materials were obtained from X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), Transmission electron microscope (TEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller method (BET). Thanks to nanostructure and the synergistic properties of PANI and MoS2/SnO2, the designed PMS gas sensor exhibited response signal of 10.9 towards 100 ppm NH3 at room temperature and a low detection limit of 200 ppb with good response-recovery time, good repeatability, acceptable flexibility and excellent selectivity. This study offers a versatile platform to modify PANI for highly selective detection of NH3 gas sensor at room temperature.