Synthesis of few-layered Ti3C2Tx/ WO3 nanorods foam composite material for NO2 gas sensing at low temperature

The few-layered Ti3C2Tx/WO3 nanorods foam composite material was synthesized by electrostatic self-assembly and bidirectional freeze-drying technologies. The phase structure and microstructure of synthesized samples was characterized by XRD, FESEM, TEM and their gas sensing properties estimated via a self-designed equipment with four test channels. The results demonstrate WO3 nanorods were successfully anchored on the surface and between layers of few-layered Ti3C2Tx MXene by electrostatic self-assembly strategy and the composite material simultaneously has a low-density foam morphology by means of bidirectional freeze-drying processes. There exists a typical heterostructure at the interfaces owing to the inseparable contact between the few-layered Ti3C2Tx MXene and WO3 nanorods. Compared with the original WO3 nanorods, the few-layered Ti3C2Tx/WO3 nanorods foam composite material displays excellent gas sensing properties for NO2 detection at low temperature, in particular the optimal value of gas sensing response (Rg/Ra) reaches to 89.46 toward 20 ppm NO2 at 200 °C. The gas sensing mechanism was also discussed. The increase of gas sensitivity is attributed to a fact that during the reaction process of gas sensing, the excellent conductivity of the few-layered Ti3C2Tx MXene provided faster transport channels of free carriers, and the heterojunctions formed by few-layered Ti3C2Tx MXene and WO3 nanorods enhanced the carriers separation efficiency. Meanwhile, the low-density layered structure of few-layered Ti3C2Tx/WO3 nanorods foam composite material provides convenient diffusion paths for gas molecules to the surface of WO3 nanorods.