LPG gas sensor activities of CeO2-Fe2O3 nanocomposite thin film at optimum temperature

• Published in: Applied physics. A, Materials science & processing Vol. 127; no. 9
• Main Authors: Kabure, A. A., Shirke, B. S., Mane, S. R., Garadkar, K. M., Sargar, B. M., Pakhare, K. S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-09-2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Applied physics; Cerium oxides; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Composite materials; Condensed Matter Physics; Crystallites; Diffraction patterns; Energy gap; Ferric oxide; Gas sensors; LPG; Machines; Manufacturing; Materials science; Metal oxides; Nanocomposites; Nanoparticles; Nanotechnology; Operating temperature; Optical and Electronic Materials; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Processes; Scientific papers; Sensors; Sol-gel processes; Surfaces and Interfaces; Synthesis; Thin Films; Ultrafines; MOS; UV–vis; LPG gas sensor; Nanocomposites; EDAX; X-ray diffraction; SEM; CeO; Fe; O
• ISSN: 0947-8396; 1432-0630
• DOI: 10.1007/s00339-021-04849-3

This research paper illustrates the study about the metal oxide composite material and sums up the mechanism of LPG gas sensing. The microwave assisted sol–gel method was applied for synthesizing the ultrafine CeO
2
, α-Fe
2
O
3
nanoparticles (NPs) and CeO
2
-Fe
2
O
3
nanocomposites (NCs). The synthesized materials were characterized by means of techniques as XRD, SEM, EDAX and UV–Vis. Spectroscopy. X-ray diffraction patterns of CeO
2
NPs confirmed the cubic structure with crystallite size of 26 nm, and α-Fe
2
O
3
NPs revealed the creation of rhombohedral structure with crystallite size of 25 nm. The CeO
2
-Fe
2
O
3
nanocomposite (NC) has a crystallite size of 10 nm. The SEM image of CeO
2
-Fe
2
O
3
NC shows small clusters of nanoparticles leading to the establishment of a high mesoporous surface which is useful for gas sensing application. An optical analysis shows that band gap energy lowers from 3.19 eV (E
g
-CeO
2
) to 1.4 eV (E
g
-CeO
2
-Fe
2
O
3
). In this paper, we evaluated the features and mechanism of the LPG sensor centered on pure metal oxides (CeO
2
, α-Fe
2
O
3
) and their composite (CeO
2
-Fe
2
O
3
). The CeO
2
-Fe
2
O
3
NCs sensor exhibited the highest response of 61.43% with concentration of LPG (24 ppm) at optimum operating temperature 250 °C.