The synergistic effect of Ce dopant/Cotton bio-template on the performance of the SnO2 gas sensor for the detection of Ethanol

Biomorphic Ce-doped SnO2 microtubules were fabricated and the sensing performances toward ethanol detection were studied. In this study, absorbent cotton is used as an eco-friendly and cost-efficient bio-template and Ce was used as a dopant. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) employed to investigate the chemical composition and microstructure of the synthesized materials. The sensitivity and response/recovery time of the fabricated sensors have been improved by incorporation of the heterostructures by facilitating catalytic activity and oxygen vacancy defects due to the redox reaction of Ce3+/Ce4+ and bio-template effect. The 2%Ce-doped SnO2 on cotton bio-template showed enhanced response compared to pristine-SnO2 and Ce-doped SnO2 at 220 °C for ethanol detection. Results indicate that the response and recovery time of the structural modified SnO2 are reduced from 48 s/70 s to 16 s/40 s. The gas sensing properties of fabricated sensors were tested against four different VOCs including ethanol, acetone, methanol, and formaldehyde.