Improved Performance of Hydrogen Sulfide Gas Sensor Based on Zinc Oxide Nanostructures Thermally Synthesized Doped with Silver Nanoparticles and Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

The present work reports an approach of hydrothermal growth of ZnO nanorods, which simplifies the production of low cost films with controlled morphology for H 2 S gas sensor application. The prepared ZnO nanorods exhibit a hexagonal wurtzite phase analyzed by the X-ray diffraction analysis. The FTIR spectra provide information that the band located between 465-570 cm -1 corresponds to the stretching bond of Zn-O, which confirms the creation of ZnO. PL spectroscopic studies showed that the doping of Ag NPs and f-MWCNT in the ZnO matrix leads to the tuning of the bandgap. The SEM analysis showed the morphology of ZnO was the nanorods. The nanocomposites Ag/ZnO and F-MWCNT/ZnO which prepared, separately were tested for H 2 S gas at low (2 ppm) and high (50 ppm) concentrations. ZnO nanorods films showed a sensitivity of 14.71% for pure ZnO with a fast response time of 25.2 sec and recovery time of 33.3 sec towards 2 ppm H 2 S. For Ag NPs/ZnO and f-MWCNTs/ZnO, sensors showed a significant sensitivity of 27.95 and 42.39 % at ~150 °C with a response time and recovery time less than pure ZnO. The ZnO sensor showed a higher sensitivity at ~150 °C for both Ag NPs and F-MWCNTs at high gas concentration, where it was 35.085 and 58.89% respectively.