Bio-inspired spindle-shaped wrinkled Au/ZnO nanoparticles for H2S-sensing enhancement

The construction of fast response, low detection limit and high stability gas sensors by means of bionics is of great significance, for the sake of fabricating more efficient and compatible materials and exploring their functional principles. The high olfactory sensitivity of dogs and mice in nature is closely related to the wrinkled structure of their turbinates, which provides inspiration for us to design the structure of gas-sensing sensing materials. In our study, various scales and concentrations Au nanoparticles were deposited on spindle-shaped wrinkled ZnO nanoparticles via a facile hydrothermal method and subsequent a series of reduction process, resulting in different sensing performances toward H2S: when the loading amount of small-sized gold nanoparticles was 0.5 wt% (0.5 wt% Au/ZnO), sample showed the highest response value of 39.23 at the optimal working temperature of 215 °C, which was 6.4 times that of pure wrinkled ZnO. The superior sensing performance can be attributed to the control of two mechanisms: adsorption-desorption mechanism and sulfurization-desulfurization mechanism. Moreover, 0.5 wt% Au/ZnO constructed in a sample and low-cost way provides a strategy to design bio-inspired materials for evaluate trace concentrations of H2S.