Selective ethanol gas sensing performance of flower-shaped CuO composed of thin nanoplates

Ethanol is one of the volatile organic compounds as well as organic pollutants that is essentially to be monitored using high response sensors. Semiconducting metal oxide nanostructures can be the potential sensor material for high-performance ethanol sensing application. Herein, we present the fabrication and characterization of highly sensitive and selective ethanol gas sensor based on flower-shaped CuO composed of thin nanoplates synthesized by facile hydrothermal process. The prepared flower-shaped CuO was examined by various techniques viz FESEM, XRD, EDS, elemental mapping, HRTEM, SAED, UV-visible spectroscopy, FTIR spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy, which confirmed the high-density growth, monoclinic crystal structure, and optical band gap of similar to 2.5 eV. The fabricated resistive sensor device based on flower-shaped CuO, at optimum experimental conditions, i.e., 250 degrees C, 100 ppm ethanol concentration, exhibited a high sensing response of 241%, while, at 10 ppm of ethanol concentration, the response was observed to be 5%. The transient responses as well as the stability of the sensor were analyzed and reported here. The selectivity of CuO sensor device was studied for NO2, CO2, CO, and CH4 gases and remarkably it was seen that the developed gas sensor devices demonstrated outstanding selectivity toward ethanol gas. Finally, the gas response mechanism of the fabricated resistive ethanol gas sensor was explained on the basis of the ionosorption model.