A simple wet-chemical procedure is reported for synthesis and subsequent functionalization of spinel ZnFe 2 O 4 nanomaterials for sensitive electrical detection of ethanol. ZnFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles are produced by triethylene glycol-mediated coprecipitation of ZnSO 4 and FeSO 4 sols in aqueous ammonia. The mechanism for synthesis is described. As-prepared ZnFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles are either thermally-treated at 673 K for 4 h or surface-modified with 3-(triethoxysilyl)propylamine to study the structure-property-sensing relationships. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy is used to characterize functional groups on ZnFe 2 O 4 surface. X-ray diffraction analysis of thermally-treated and surface-modified ZnFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles coincide with the cubic spinel ZnFe 2 O 4 structure having a crystallite size of 4.8 nm and 5.9 nm, respectively. The microstructure of ZnFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles demonstrates a significant difference in the surface morphology of different samples. Vibrating sample magnetometer analyses demonstrate that ZnFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles are superparamagnetic in nature. Thick-film chemiresistive ethanol sensors are then fabricated and tested at 300 K to determine the sensing characteristics of different ZnFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles. The surface-modified ZnFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles exhibit the highest sensitivity (0.51 ppm −1 ), good selectivity with 168.2% (2.7 times) higher response toward ethanol compared to major interferents, fast response (τ res = 50 s) and recovery (τ rec = 116 s) times, and excellent stability with 91.5% efficiency after three weeks of testing.
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Khurshid et al. (2019) studied this question.
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