Preparation and TEA gas sensing properties of Pt-modified honeycomb-like porous SnO2 nanosheets

In this paper, honeycomb-like porous Pt-modified SnO2 nanocomposites were synthesized via a two-step method. The three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical porous structure was assembled from numerous SnO2 nanosheets with an average thickness of 16 nm. The gas sensing performance of the sensors based on pristine SnO2 and Pt/SnO2 nanocomposites was systematically investigated. The results indicated that decorating of Pt nanoparticles could significantly improve the sensitivity of SnO2 sensors to triethylamine (TEA), but could also reduce the optimal working temperature from 250 °C to 200 °C. In particular, the Pt/SnO2 based sensor with a Pt content of 1 at% exhibited the maximum response value, shortest response time, and excellent stability, implying its great application prospect for TEA detection. The significant improvement of TEA sensing performance of Pt-modified SnO2 sensors were attributed to the unique hierarchical porous structure and sensitizing actions of Pt nanoparticles.