Superior Hydrogen Sensing Property of Porous NiO/SnO2 Nanofibers Synthesized via Carbonization

Abstract

In this paper, the porous NiO/SnO₂ nanofibers were synthesized via the electrospinning method along with the carbonization process. The characterization results show that the pristine SnO₂-based nanofibers can form porous structure with different grain size by carbonization. The hydrogen gas-sensing investigations indicate that the NiO/SnO₂ sensor exhibits more prominent sensing properties than those of pure SnO₂ sensor devices. Such enhanced performance is mainly attributed to the porous nanostructure, which can provide large active adsorption sites for surface reaction. Moreover, the existence of p-n heterojunctions between NiO and SnO₂ also plays a key role in enhancing gas-sensing performances. Finally, the H₂ sensing mechanism based on the NiO/SnO₂ nanocomposite was proposed for developing high-performance gas sensor devices.