Synthesis and enhanced gas sensing properties of iron titanate and copper titanate nanomaterials

Titanate-based materials have been widely used in energy and environmental fields, but only few work was focused on the gas sensing applications, partly because of their high operating temperature and poor selectivity. Herein, amorphous iron titanate and copper titanate nanomaterials were successfully synthesized by a simple hydrothermal method followed by a cationic substitution process. They are spherical nanoparticles agglomerated from nanosheets, and the surface area is as high as 188.7 m2 g−1. It revealed that the selective gas sensing performance towards ethanol exhibited n-type behaviors. Moreover, the sensitivity can be down to 100 ppm at an operating temperature as low as 131.4 °C. The typical response and recovery times are 17s and 124 s, respectively. Life assessments indicated that the sensing performance could remain stable up to 210 days. In all, the good ethanol selectivity, the low operating temperature, the fast response time and the long life stability indicate their promising and practical applications in trace detection of ethanol.