Low-Cost Preparation of SBA-15 Silica Molecular Sieve and High Humidity Sensing Property in a Wide Range of Relative Humidity

In this paper, different SBA-15 molecular sieves were prepared in a facile sol-gel method by using a low-cost sodium silicate as silicon source at different ripening temperature. The materials were characterized by small-angle XRD, TEM, nitrogen adsorption–desorption test. The results showed that ripening temperature can affect the pore size and mesostructure of SBA-15. High surface area SBA-15 can be obtained at low ripening temperature, and plugged mesostructure can be prepared at high temperature. The gravimetric humidity sensing property of the materials were tested based on a transducer of quartz crystal microbalance. The test results revealed that all the samples showed high response in the wide range of relative humidity. The sensors based on that prepared at 35°C show a good stability and linearity in the range of 11.3%RH to 98%RRH along with fast response (12s) and recovery time (8s), ultrahigh sensitivity and low hysteresis, implying that has a great potential for humidity detection.