Acetone sensing properties of reduced graphene
oxide–CdFe
2
O
4
composites prepared by hydrothermal method
Tao Hu
a
, Xiangfeng Chu
a,
n
, Feng Gao
b
, Yongping Dong
a
,
Wenqi Sun
a
, Linshan Bai
a
a
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Maanshan 243002, PR China
b
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, PR China
article info
Available online 3 March 2015
Keywords:
Reduced graphene oxide
CdFe
2
O
4
Gas sensor
Acetone vapor
abstract
Reduced graphene oxide (RGO)–CdFe
2
O
4
composites with different amounts of RGO (0, 0.1,
0.5, 1, 2 and 3 wt%) wer e prepared via a hydrothermal method at 180 1Cfor12h.Theas-
prepared RGO–CdFe
2
O
4
composites were characterized by X-ra y diffraction (XRD), Thermo-
gravimetric analysis (T G A), Fourier transform infrared spectra (FT-IR), Scanning electron
microscopy (SEM), N
2
adsorption–desorption and Raman spectroscopy, respectively. The
effect of the amount of RGO in the composites on the gas-sensing responses and the gas-
sensing selectivity of the materials was investigated. The experimental results revealed that
thesensorbasedon1wt%RGO–CdFe
2
O
4
composite (180 1C, 12 h) exhibited high response
and good selectivity to acetone vapor, and the response to 1 000 ppm and 0.01 ppm acetone
vapor attained 1069.0 and 2.0 when operating at 270 1C, respectively. The response time and
recovery time for 0.01 ppm acetone vapor were only 5 s and 3 s, respectively.
& 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction
Acetone is often used as an organic solvent (plastic, fiber
and spray-paint) or chemical intermediate (dyestuff, rubber
and lubricating oil). Although it is popularly regarded as a low
toxic compound, it may cause headache, bronchitis and even
narcosis when the concentration of acetone vapor in air is
higher than 10,000 ppm [1]. The medical reports indicate that
acetone is one of the products e xhaled by diabetic patients
who hav e higher the concentration of acetone in their blood
and spittle than healthy person [2,3].Theconcentrationof
acetone in exhaled air of a health y person varies from 0.3 to
0.9 ppm, but the concentration of acetone in exhalation of
diabetic patient increases to be higher than 1 .8 ppm [4,5].
Accord ing to hy gienic standard for the design of industrial
enterprises (TJ36-79) [6], the concentration of acetone in
workshop should be lower than 400 mg/m
3
(1 54.5 ppm).
Hence, it is of great significance to measure the concentration
of acetone for our work environment safety and human health.
In the past decades, gas sensors have been applied in
many fields, such as industrial process control, detection of
toxic environmental pollutants, human health and the pre-
vention of hazardous gas leakages [7,8]. The gas sensing
properties of man y metal oxides, mixed oxides and complex
oxides have been deeply investigated in recent years. Spinel-
type oxides with a formula of AB
2
O
4
, such as the ferrites
(ZnFe
2
O
4
[8,9],CoFe
2
O
4
[10],NiFe
2
O
4
[11],CuFe
2
O
4
[1 2] and
CdFe
2
O
4
[13–15]), have been proven to be important complex
oxides in the field of gas sensors. Lou et al. [1 3 ] reported that
the response of the sensor based on CdFe
2
O
4
powder pre-
pared by sol–gel method to 100 ppm acetone was only 6.9
when operating at 250 1C. Our group [14] fabricated the
sensor based on CdFe
2
O
4
thick film prepared by co-
precipitati on method, the CdFe
2
O
4
thick film was capable of
detecting H
2
SandCH
3
SH at 250 1C. Yang et al. [1 5] prepared
CdFe
2
O
4
using an inverse titration chemical coprecipitation
method and investigat ed their acetone- sensing properties,
they found that the optimal operating temperature of the
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Materials Science in Semiconductor Processing
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mssp.2015.02.037
1369-8001/& 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ 86 555 2311822; fax: þ 86 551 2311822.
E-mail address: xfchu99@ahut.edu.cn (X. Chu).
Materials Science in Semiconductor Processing 34 (2015) 146–153