Reference

For application in sensors, electrospun nanofiber composites based on ceramics attract a lot attention of scientists owing to their large surface area, small size in diameter, continuity along the length, and controllable compositions. In the present work, sensors that were made of several kinds of ceramic composite nanofibers have been prepared via electrospinning followed by calcination technique, such as Li+/TiO2, Na+/MgO/TiO2, ZnO, ZnO-SnO2, Fe2O3, and In2O3. Their sensitivities for H2O vapor, ethanol, CH3OH, NH3, H2, CH4, C2H2, HCHO, CO and NO2 were investigated. The results show that the sensors are more sensitive to H2O and ethanol vapors than to the other gases. The reason for that is H2O and ethanol are easily chemadsorbed onto the oxygen species (O2−, O2−, O−) located on the surface of the ceramic nanofibers. Their combination makes an increase in the conductance of the ceramic nanofibers, resulting in the increasing of sensitivity of the sensors