ON-DEMAND PREPARATION OF GAS-SENSING MATERIALS GUIDED BY RESONANT CANTILEVER-BASED THERMOGRAVIMETRIC ANALYSIS

In this work, the preparation conditions of Mn3O4 nanowires for formaldehyde (HCHO) sensing are optimized with a resonant cantilever-based thermogravimetric analysis (referred to as cantilever-TGA) technology. The cantilever-TGA technology only consumes about 20 ng of samples for one measurement, which is six orders of magnitude lower than the mainstream commercial-available TGA instruments, making it ideal for exploring optimal sample preparation conditions. Herein the cantilever-TGA technology has been successfully used to investigate the preparation conditions of Mn3O4 sensing material from the precursor of b-MnO2 nanowires. With the guidance of cantilever-TGA, pure-phase and morphology well-maintained Mn3O4 gas-sensing materials can be obtained under H-2 atmosphere at 330 degrees C, which is 230 degrees C lower than N-2 atmosphere. Due to the well-maintained nanowire-like structure and high mobility, the response of the Mn3O4@H-2 material to HCHO is one-fold higher than that of the Mn3O4@N-2 material.