Excellent ethanol sensor based on LaFeO3 modified with gold nanoparticles

LaFeO3 modified with gold nanoparticles are synthesized by a simple wet chemical method. The structural and morphological characterizations of the Au-LaFeO3 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-LaFeO3 nanocomposites was studied by changing the amount of HAuCl4. The experimental results indicate that the sensors prepared with different volume of HAuCl4 solution show excellent gas sensing properties to ethanol. Au functionalization immensely improved the gas-sensing abilities of the LaFeO3 nanowires. At the optimum working temperature, the highest sensitivity of Au-LaFeO3 gas sensor to 100 ppm ethanol gas is 44, which is 27 times higher than that of LaFeO3 sensor. In addition, Au-LaFeO3 gas sensor has high selectivity and strong anti-interference ability to ethanol gas. The sensing mechanism of the Au-LaFeO3 gas sensor is also discussed in detail.