Advances in carbon nanotube-based gas sensors: Exploring the path to the future

In the era of the Internet of Things, sensors are pivotal for a smart and interconnected future. Gas sensors, particularly those based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs), emerge as essential tools supporting environmental protection policies with their highly sensitive gas detection capabilities. This review highlights the recent strides in CNTs based gas sensors. It begins with outlining the CNT fundamental traits, establishing the groundworks for explaining their working principles and integrated manufacturing. The discussion proceeds to key parameters for evaluating gas sensor performance. Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats analysis showed that CNTs based gas sensors demonstrate promising potential in various applications, leveraging their exceptional responsiveness, sustainability, and integration capabilities, despite facing challenges in scalability and market competition. The review then delves into the research progress and sensing mechanisms of CNTs based gas sensors in environmental monitoring, industrial safety, and health care, showcasing their exceptional attributes like high sensitivity, fast response, and low power consumption. Finally, the future development of CNTs based gas sensors may focus on enhancing sensing performance, achieving miniaturization, integration and multifunctionality, standardizing measurement processes, as well as utilizing machine learning to improve sensor selectivity and stability. These advances aim to enhance reliability, broaden application scopes, facilitate commercialization, and meet the evolving needs of practical applications.