Highly sensitive V2O5·1.6H2O nanostructures for sensing of helium gas at room temperature

In this work, we report the facile synthesis of hydrated vanadium pentoxide (V2O5·1.6H2O) nanostars using hydrothermal route and their use was demonstrated and compared with nanowire type structure for sensing of helium gas for the first time. The gas sensing properties were attributed to the electron hopping mechanism in V2O5·1.6H2O nanostructures at room temperature. We observed that the change in morphology of V2O5·1.6H2O helps to augment the overall response (to 53% at 300 ppm) with very low response/recovery time (9/10 s). The excellent sensing properties at room temperature, make V2O5·1.6H2O nanostructures a potential material for He gas sensing application.