ZnO/ZnSe heterojunction nanocomposites with oxygen vacancies for acetone sensing

Oxygen vacancies ZnO/ZnSe heterojunction was designed by incorporating ZnSe into ZIF-8 derived ZnO followed by an annealing process. The as-prepared material possessed excellent acetone sensing properties even at low concentrations and is expected to be used in the non-invasive detection of diabetes in patients. Using a facile hydrothermal method, pristine ZnO and ZnSe were prepared, and then they were mixed and thermally annealed to form the composite. Subsequently, the materials were characterized by using various techniques such as XRD, XPS, EPR, etc. According to the sensing study, the highest response of the material in 1 ppm acetone was as high as 5.8, which was 2.3 times that of pure ZnO. In addition, the as-prepared composite was less sensitive to interfering gases, which indicates the feasibility of developing highly sensitive acetone sensors based on this material. Thus, the material prepared in this work may be applied to the non-invasive detection of diabetes in patients, and hence it is worthy to conduct further in-depth research.