Carbon functionalized cladding bismuth tungstate-based 3D twisted micro-flowers for benzaldehyde detection under ultraviolet light excitation

Although semiconducting metal oxide displayed remarkable gas sensing capabilities, their path to commercialization is impeded by several challenges. A primary hurdle is the consistent response of sensing films with impervious feature under diverse detection environment. This report introduces an efficient fabrication technique that yields carbon functionalized cladding bismuth tungstate-based benzaldehyde sensors. The 3D twisted micro-flowers feature was obtained and carbon cladding was uniformly attached by a one-pot wet chemistry strategy. The C0.75/WO3/Bi2WO6 sensor demonstrates superior sensing capabilities for benzaldehyde at a wide range of detection. It features a remarkable sensitivity (33.7 @ 50 ppm), swift recovery time of 49 seconds, enduring stability exceeding 15 days, and robust selectivity, all at a modest room temperature. Even in conditions of high moisture, the response value exhibited minimal degradation, decreasing by a mere 8.96% compared to its performance in the absence of ambient humidity. The complementary density functional theory calculations suggest that the Cx/WO3/Bi2WO6 exhibits a greater benzaldehyde adsorption energy and more robust anti-humidity feature compared to WO3/Bi2WO6, contributing to its enhanced gas-sensing efficacy.