Highly Sensitive Acetone Gas Sensors Using Nanocomposites of CuO Hollow Nanocubes Decorated on TiO_2

摘要

There has been considerable effort to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by metal oxide semiconductor gas sensors for their high sensitivity, low cost, easy production, and compact size. In recent times, acetone in exhaled breath have studied for biomarkers more than hazardous air pollutants. According to the previous studies, breath acetone may be correlated with fat burning not only a specific breath marker for type-1 diabetes. However, there are many drawbacks of metal oxide based acetone sensors to apply diet monitoring since the concentration of breath acetone for healthy humans are from 300 to 900 ppb, which require to develop highly sensitive sensing materials and systems. From this point of view, addition of noble metals for catalytic effect, formation of p-n heterojunction and synthesis of hierarchical and hollow nanostructures for high surface area are suggested to improve the sensing performances. In this study, we describe the novel nanostructure of hollow CuO nanocubes decorated on hollow TiO_2 nanosphere and investigate their acetone gas response properties.