Rhodium as efficient additive for boosting acetone sensing by TiO2 nanocrystals. Beyond the classical view of noble metal additives
Epifani, Mauro (Istituto per la Microelettronica e i Microsistemi)
Kaciulis, Saulius (Istituto per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati)
Mezzi, Alessio (Istituto per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati)
Zhang, Ting (Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia)
Arbiol i Cobos, Jordi (Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia)
Siciliano, Pietro (Istituto per la Microelettronica e i Microsistemi)
Landström, Anton (Luleå University of Technology. Department of Engineering Science and Mathematics)
Concina, Isabella (Luleå University of Technology. Department of Engineering Science and Mathematics)
Moumen, Abderrahim (Brescia University. Department of Information Engineering)
Comini, Elisabetta (Brescia University. Department of Information Engineering)
Xiangfeng, Chu (Anhui University of Technology. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering)

Date:	2020
Abstract:	Anatase TiO nanocrystals were prepared by solvothermal synthesis and modified by in- situ generated Rh nanoparticles, with a starting nominal Rh:Ti atomic concentration of 0. 01 and 0. 05. After heat-treatment at 400 °C the TiO host was still in the anatase crystallographic phase, embedding Rh nanoparticles homogeneously distributed and whose surface had been oxidized to RhO, as established by X-ray diffraction, Transmission Electron Microscopy and X-ray Photoelectron spectroscopy. Moreover, Rh seemed also homogeneously distributed in elemental form or as RhO nanoclusters. The acetone sensing properties of the resulting materials were enhanced by Rh addition, featuring a response increase of one order of magnitude at the best operating temperature of 300 °C. Moreover, Rh addition enlarged the detection range down to 10 ppm whereas pure TiO was not able of giving an appreciable response already at a concentration as high as 50 ppm. From the sensing data, the enhancement of the sensor response was attributed to the finely dispersed Rh species and not to the oxidized Rh nanocrystals.
Grants:	Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad SEV-2017-0706 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad ENE2017-85087-C3 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-327
Note:	Altres ajuts: ICN2 is funded by the CERCA Programme / Generalitat de Catalunya. Part of the present work has been performed in the framework of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Materials Science PhD program. TZ has received funding from the CSC-UAB PhD scholarship program.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió sotmesa a revisió
Subject:	TiO2 nanocrystals ; Acetone sensing ; Rhodium ; Noble metal additives ; Solvothermal synthesis
Published in:	Sensors and actuators. B, Chemical, Vol. 319 (Sep. 2020) , art. 128338, ISSN 1873-3077

DOI: 10.1016/j.snb.2020.128338

Preprint 24 p, 1.3 MB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles