Flexible fabric gas sensors based on reduced graphene-polyaniline nanocomposite for highly sensitive NH 3 detection at room temperature

Abstract A flexible fabric gas sensor for the detection of sub-ppm-level NH 3 is reported in this paper. The reduced graphene oxide (rGO)-polyaniline (PANI) nanocomposite was successfully coated on cotton thread via an in situ polymerization technique. The morphology, microstructure and composition were analyzed by field-emission scanning electron microscope, x-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Furthermore, we have studied the responses of the rGO-PANI nanocomposite-based flexible sensors for the detection of NH 3 varying from 1–100 ppm, operated at 22 °C. At the optimized concentration of rGO, the response of these sensors increased by 4–5 times in comparison with the pristine rGO and PANI. These flexible sensors exhibited fast response, remarkable long-term stability, good selectivity and a low detection limit. The sensing mechanism for the high sensing performance has been thoroughly discussed and it is mainly due to the distinctive 1D fiber structure, the formation of a p-p heterojunction between the rGO nanosheets and PANI. The rGO-PANI composite-based fabric sensor with low power consumption is a potential flexible electronic device for the detection of NH 3 .