Fabrication of Room Temperature Resistive Ethanol Gas Sensor Based on ZnO Nanorods Decorated with PbS Nanoparticles

A resistive ethanol gas sensor with a high sensitivity has been proposed. The fabricated gas sensor has a very promising response and recovery at room temperature. The proposed sensor has been fabricated by depositing sensitive nanostructured material on printed circuit board interdigitated electrodes. As the sensitive material, ZnO nanorods of high uniformity have been synthesized by hydrothermal method and then decorated by PbS nanoparticles. The synthesized decorated nanorods were characterized by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope which confirmed the formation of the desired nanostructures. The ethanol gas sensing properties of the ZnO nanorods decorated with PdS nanoparticles was measured in a test chamber. The minimum ethanol concentration detected by the sensor has been 10 ppm. The results showed the higher sensitivity of the proposed sensor to the ethanol at room temperature compared to similar works.