Progress report

Centre of excellence TEQIP-II

Debanjan Acharyya (Enrollment No:152013BE2)

Title: The development of ZnO nanoforms for optimized chemical sensor

applications

Supervised by Dr. Partha Bhattacharyya

Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering Department
Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur

Work Done:

The volatile organic compound (VOC) like alchohols, benzene, toluene and xylene, owing to

their carcinogenic nature, is a severe threat to human health. The main origin of VOCs are the

petroleum and coal refineries, industries concerning consumer products (such as paint, thinners,

adhesives, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals) and emissions from motor vehicles and aircraft.

Owing to their relatively high water solubility they posses severe threat to ground water

reservoir. VOC are rapidly and efficiently absorbed and widely distributed throughout the body.

Exposure to very high concentrations of VOC in air (700 ppm and above) can even lead to death.

Lower levels (70 – 300 ppm) can effect on central nervous system and causes drowsiness,

dizziness, rapid heart rate, headaches, tremor, confusion, and unconsciousness. Thus, due its

severe toxic and incurable effects on human bodies upon short term and long term exposure,

efficient detection of VOC is a timely demand across the globe.

In a study, the sensing performance of flower like ZnO structures were systematically

investigated for three different organic vapors compound viz. benzene, toluene and xylene in the

respective concentration range of 0.5-700 ppm. High surface to volueme ratio as well as present
of desirable defect states (viz. oxygen vacancies and Zinc interstitials) of flower like ZnO nano

structure surface facilitate to attain relatively low operating temperature (200ºC), high sensitivity,

fast response time for the benzene, toluene and xylene detection. Developed sensor showed very

promising and stable BTX sensing performance at appreciably low operating temperature

(200°C) with appreciably high high dynamic range (0.5-700 ppm). Response magnitude was also

found to be significantly high (92.6, 96.9, 99% at 700 ppm respectively) with reasonably fast

response time (5 s (X), 6 s (T), and 15 s (B) respectively). The sensor also offered acceptable

response magnitude (39.3, 45.8 and 47.8 %) and fast response and recovery time (~23 s and

(23.5 s), 28 s and (29 s), and 23 s and (26 s) respectively) characteristics at even 0.5 ppm

concentration.

In another effort comparative study on methanol sensing performance of ZnO nanoflowers and

nanorods is investigated. Both the nanoforms, in resistive mode, were found to detect methanol

with a high dynamic range of 0.5-700 ppm. Both the nanoforms offered the optimum operating

temperature of 300°C with the corresponding response magnitude (RM) of 39%-92%

(nanoflowers) and 54%-94.1% (nanorods) towards 0.5 ppm and 700 ppm methanol respectively.

The response time of the nanorod based sensor were found to be faster than its nanoflower based

counterpart. Improved methanol sensing properties of nanorods sensor (compared to nanoflower)

might be attributed to the more ordered structures of nanorods.

In a consecutive effort pointed and blunt tips based ZnO nanoflowers were synthesized and their

methanol sensing performance is experimented. The better sensing performance of blunt tips

based nanoflowers possibly attributed to the higher amount of oxygen vacancies compared to the

pointed tips structures. The correlation between the defect states of the nanoflowers with their

methanol sensing characteristics was established with the help of PL analysis.

 [a] [b]

[c] [d]

Fig 1. FESEM image of ZnO (a) nanoparticle (b) blunt tip based nanoflower (c) NF with

nano dumbbell (d) sharp tip based nanoflower

 (101)

*
(002)
(100)

Intensity(a.u.)
*

(110) (103)
(102) (112)

(200)

20 30 40 50 60 70
2θ(Degree)

(a) (b)

Fig. 2: Device schematic and XRD of the synthesized ZnO sharp edge based nanoflowers

70 0.5 ppm 1 ppm 5 ppm 10 ppm 50 ppm 100 ppm 200 ppm 400 ppm 700 ppm
60
50
40
30
20
10
0 Xylene
70
Resistanse (M)

60
50
40
30
20
10
0 Toluene
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0 Benzene

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500

Time (s)

Fig 3. Transient response characteristics of ZnO nanoflower based sensor to the exposure

of xylene, toluene, benzene in concentration range of 0.5-700 ppm at the optimum

temperature.
Future plan of work:

 Surface modification by metal catalyst such as Pd, Ni, Ru etc.ZnO

 ZnO Nanotube fabrication and Sensing study.

 ZnO based p-n Homojunction and Heterojuction device fabrication and sensing

performance study

 Integration of Atomatic Gas sensing measurement setup

 Investigation of most efficient metal oxide for gas sensing performance