Enhancement of NH3 gas sensing with Ag-Pt co-catalyst on SnO2 nanofilm towards medical diagnosis

•Bimetallic Ag-Pt catalyst was used to enhance NH3 gas sensing performance.•The sensor could monitor NH3 gas at sub-ppm level toward breath analysis.•High sensor response of 4.31 at 1 ppm NH3 with fast response time of 12 s.•The sensor showed negligibly affected by humidity and interfering gases. Exhaled breath analysis is a noninvasive diagnostic method for fatal disease monitoring and screening, which is recently gained extensive interest of researchers worldwide emphasizing on the development of effective chemiresistive gas sensor for practical application. Here, the Ag-Pt bimetallic nanoparticles were used to decorate nanofilms of SnO2 making different gas sensors with high performance. We found that the bimetal alloy improved the sensor performance significantly with super sensitivity as compared with the separate Ag and Pt catalyst. The right ratio of the bimetal made the sensor very sensitive to NH3, so that it was able to quickly (12 s) detect 1 parts-per-million of NH3 with a response of 4.31 at a temperature of 250 °C. The sensor limit of detection for NH3 was less than 10 parts-per-billion. The response of the sensor was negligibly affected by humidity and interfering gases. The results showed that the tiny, robust, and inexpensive sensor developed in this work can be used in breath analysis for early diagnosis via NH3 monitoring.