Assembly, formation mechanism, and enhanced gas-sensing properties of porous and hierarchical SnO 2 hollow nanostructure

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Guangyu Chen, Yuteng Wan, and Kai Qian Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, People’s Republic of China

Sitaramanjaneya Mouli T. Centre of Nanotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology-Roorkee, Roorkee 247667, India (Received 30 January 2010; accepted 19 April 2010)

Hierarchical and hollow SnS2 nanostructures as precursors were fabricated via a surfactant-assisted assembly process using sodium dodecyl sulfate as soft templates. The as-prepared SnS2 nanostructures were further oxidized to form porous SnO2 conversion for investigating their gas-sensing properties in drug-precursor detection. On the basis of a series of time- and ratio-dependent reactions, a formation mechanism of the special nanostructures and factors influencing morphology and structure were determined. Gas-sensing measurements revealed that the porous and hierarchical SnO2 hollow nanostructures were sensitive to drug precursors, indicating promising applications in environmental monitoring and public safety investigation. In addition, we found that the assembled SnO2 nanomaterials possessed significantly enhanced gas-sensing properties compared with unassembled SnO2 with a solid interior. I. INTRODUCTION

Hierarchical architectures, especially micro/nanoscale structures, have attracted extensive attention due to their special properties that enable them to be applied in optics, electronics, magnetics, biomimetics, and catalysis.1–4 As the performance of such applications are determined by the morphology and structure of materials, during the past decade, effort has focused on the preparation of well-defined hierarchical nanoarchitectures and more complex nanostructures via various solution- or vaporphased approaches.5–7 Among them, the surfactant-assisted assembly process is of particular interest because of its advantages, for example, low cost, large yield, and excellent repeatability. Many surfactants, such as cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), poly 4-nonylphenyl 3-sulfopropyl ether potassium salt (PENS), sodium dodecyl benzenesulfonate (SDBS), and polyvinyl pyrrolidine (PVP), have been developed as soft templates for the assembly of hierarchical nanostructures, for example, ZnO, Ni(OH)2, CdS, and MnO2.8–10 In spite of these significant achievements, developing novel surfactant-assisted processes to assemble hierarchical nanoarchitectures for applications still remains a great challenge. a)

Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected] DOI: 10.1557/JMR.2010.0247

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J. Mater. Res., Vol. 25, No. 10, Oct 2010

In recent years, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) has received increasing interest due to its special molecular structure with a polar group and a tail-like nonpolar group. Lee et al. reported the assembly of organic materials from nanoparticles to nanorods and nanowires by using SDS as the template.11 More recently, Edler’s group revealed that polymers could interact with the SDS/CTAB mixture, thereby enabling it to fabricate more complex structures.12 Furthermore, a

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