Excellent ethanol sensor based on LaFeO3 modified with gold nanoparticles

LaFeO 3 modified with gold nanoparticles are synthesized by a simple wet chemical method. The structural and morphological characterizations of the Au-LaFeO 3 nanocomposites are performed by various techniques such as X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS). In this experiment, the ethanol sensing performance of Au-LaFeO 3 nanocomposites was studied by changing the amount of HAuCl 4 . The experimental results indicate that the sensors prepared with different volume of HAuCl 4 solution show excellent gas sensing properties to ethanol. Au functionalization immensely improved the gas-sensing abilities of the LaFeO 3 nanowires. At the optimum working temperature, the highest sensitivity of Au-LaFeO 3 gas sensor to 100 ppm ethanol gas is 44, which is 27 times higher than that of LaFeO 3 sensor. In addition, Au-LaFeO 3 gas sensor has high selectivity and strong anti-interference ability to ethanol gas. The sensing mechanism of the Au-LaFeO 3 gas sensor is also discussed in detail.