Synergistic Effect of Surface Acidity and PtOx Catalyst on the Sensitivity of Nanosized Metal–Oxide Semiconductors to BenzeneстатьяИсследовательская статья
Статья опубликована в высокорейтинговом журнале
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Аннотация:Benzene is a potentially carcinogenic volatile organic compound (VOC) and its vapor mustbe strictly monitored in air. Metal–oxide semiconductors (MOS) functionalized by catalytic noblemetals are promising materials for sensing VOC, but basic understanding of the relationships ofmaterials composition and sensors behavior should be improved. In this work, the sensitivity tobenzene was comparatively studied for nanocrystalline n-type MOS (ZnO, In2O3, SnO2, TiO2, andWO3) in pristine form and modified by catalytic PtOx nanoparticles. Active sites of materials wereanalyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and temperature-programmed techniques usingprobe molecules. The sensing mechanism was studied by in situ diffuse-reflectance infrared (DRIFT)spectroscopy. Distinct trends were observed in the sensitivity to benzene for pristine MOS andnanocomposites MOS/PtOx. The higher sensitivity of pristine SnO2, TiO2, and WO3 was observed.This was attributed to higher total concentrations of oxidation sites and acid sites favoring targetmolecules’ adsorption and redox conversion at the surface of MOS. The sensitivity of PtOxmodifiedsensors increased with the surface acidity of MOS and were superior for WO3/PtOx. It was deducedthat this was due to stabilization of reduced Pt sites which catalyze deep oxidation of benzenemolecules to carbonyl species.