Highly sensitive room-temperature gas sensors based on hydrothermal synthesis of Cr2O3 hollow nanospheres

This paper reports that Cr2O3 hollow nanospheres (HNs) were synthesized via a hydrothermal approach and characterized by scanning electron microscopy, x-ray powder diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selective area electron diffraction and high resolution TEM, respectively. In addition, the room-temperature (RT) gas sensing proper-ties of Cr2O3 HNs and conventional powders (CPs) were investigated by means of the surface photovoltage technique. The experimental data demonstrate that the RT gas sensor of the as-fabricated HNs reaches below 5 ppm whereas that of the CPs is about 40 ppm, which results from there being much more adsorbed and desorbed oxygen in HNs than in CPs at RT. The as-prepared Cr2O3 HNs could have potential applications as RT nanosensors.