Sunflower-Shaped Zinc Oxide Architectures Decorated with Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles for the Stable Detection of ppb-Concentration Benzaldehyde

The newly emerged gas sensing detection of benzaldehyde biomarkers is deemed as a noninvasive way to indirectly diagnose lung canceration, in which the benzaldehyde sensing is simultaneously endowed with high stability, along with humidity tolerance and ppb-concentration detection limit, but requires further developing. Here, sunflower-shaped zinc oxide architectures decorated with cerium oxide nanoparticles (ZnO ACHs/CeO2 NPs) have been synthesized via a hydrothermal process followed by annealing for stable and ppb-concentration benzaldehyde sensing. As-prepared ZnO ACHs/CeO2 NPs are observed with sunflower-shaped architectures decorated with CeO2 NPs. Beneficially, ZnO ACHs/CeO2 NPs exhibit a 50 ppb detection limit, 71 days stability, and 90% RH humidity tolerance at 240 °C. Such an excellent benzaldehyde sensing performance might be attributed to the accelerated electron transfers by forming heterojunctions and enriched adsorption sites over sunflower-shaped architectures. Remarkably, the classification algorithm combined with principal component analysis was conducted to identify the benzaldehyde from other interfering gases. Practically, ZnO ACHs/CeO2 NPs are integrated into the benzaldehyde sensing device, which has potential in the future early diagnosis of lung canceration.