A practical carbon dioxide gas sensor using room-temperature hydrogen plasma reduced graphene oxide

Abstract We report on the development of a carbon dioxide gas sensor from the room-temperature reduction of graphene oxide via hydrogen plasma. The hydrogen plasma contains radicals and atoms which give dissociation energies for oxygen functional groups, which is capable of reducing the graphene oxide. The sample morphology, degree of reduction, chemical bonding and gas sensing capability were systematically studied. The effective removal of oxygen functional groups at the edges and both basal planes while restoring C=C bonds has been observed by AFM, XPS and Raman analysis. The C/O ratio increased from 0.81 to 7.9 and the resistance decreased significantly from 33 kΩ to 1.6 kΩ after the reduction process. The fabricated rGO-F20 sensor shows the highest CO 2 gas sensing response of 71% and 15% at 1500 ppm in N 2 (37% RH) and air environment (68% RH), respectively. In addition, the sensor shows a good repeatability performance with the sensing and recovery time of about 4 min when exposed to 750 and 769 ppm CO 2 concentration. The repeatability performance was measured in air environment at 68% RH without external assisted recovery. This simple, room-temperature reduction process and sensing capability, low cost fabrication process of a graphene sensor could lead to the implementation of a practical indoor air quality monitor.

[1]  G. Eda,et al.  Chemically Derived Graphene Oxide: Towards Large‐Area Thin‐Film Electronics and Optoelectronics , 2010, Advanced materials.

[2]  Ting Yu,et al.  Thickness-dependent reversible hydrogenation of graphene layers. , 2009, ACS nano.

[3]  Daqiang Zhang,et al.  A Survey on Gas Sensing Technology , 2012, Sensors.

[4]  Hui‐Ming Cheng,et al.  The reduction of graphene oxide , 2012 .

[5]  L. Ocola,et al.  Gas detection using low-temperature reduced graphene oxide sheets , 2009 .

[6]  R. Stoltenberg,et al.  Evaluation of solution-processed reduced graphene oxide films as transparent conductors. , 2008, ACS nano.

[7]  Andre K. Geim,et al.  The rise of graphene. , 2007, Nature materials.

[8]  Zhixian Zhou,et al.  Carbon dioxide gas sensor using a graphene sheet , 2011 .

[9]  R. Ruoff,et al.  The chemistry of graphene oxide. , 2010, Chemical Society reviews.

[10]  D. S. Misra,et al.  Thinning of multilayer graphene to monolayer graphene in a plasma environment , 2011, Nanotechnology.

[11]  Yang Yang,et al.  A one-step, solvothermal reduction method for producing reduced graphene oxide dispersions in organic solvents. , 2010, ACS nano.

[12]  Rong Yang,et al.  Restoration of graphene from graphene oxide by defect repair , 2012 .

[13]  Jang‐Kyo Kim,et al.  Fabrication of highly conducting and transparent graphene films , 2010 .

[14]  Shin-Shem Pei,et al.  Wafer-scale synthesis of graphene by chemical vapor deposition and its application in hydrogen sensing , 2010 .

[15]  Minhao Shi,et al.  One-step solid state preparation of reduced graphene oxide , 2012 .

[16]  Rodney S. Ruoff,et al.  Effect of Water Vapor on Electrical Properties of Individual Reduced Graphene Oxide Sheets , 2008 .

[17]  R. M. Sankaran,et al.  Plasma-Assisted Reduction of Graphene Oxide at Low Temperature and Atmospheric Pressure for Flexible Conductor Applications. , 2012, The journal of physical chemistry letters.

[18]  J. Tascón,et al.  Atomic force and scanning tunneling microscopy imaging of graphene nanosheets derived from graphite oxide. , 2009, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.

[19]  P. Pikhitsa,et al.  Room temperature CO and H2 sensing with carbon nanoparticles , 2011, Nanotechnology.

[20]  O. Akhavan.  The effect of heat treatment on formation of graphene thin films from graphene oxide nanosheets , 2010 .

[21]  A. Mahmood,et al.  Production, properties and potential of graphene , 2010, 1002.0370.

[22]  Lifeng Yan,et al.  Preparation of graphene by the rapid and mild thermal reduction of graphene oxide induced by microwaves , 2010 .

[23]  S. Stankovich,et al.  Chemical analysis of graphene oxide films after heat and chemical treatments by X-ray photoelectron and Micro-Raman spectroscopy , 2009 .

[24]  K. Novoselov,et al.  Detection of individual gas molecules adsorbed on graphene. , 2006, Nature materials.

[25]  Rakesh K. Joshi,et al.  Graphene Films and Ribbons for Sensing of O2, and 100 ppm of CO and NO2 in Practical Conditions , 2010 .

[26]  P. Bhattacharyya,et al.  Recent developments on graphene and graphene oxide based solid state gas sensors , 2012 .

[27]  N. Koratkar,et al.  Graphene-Based Chemical Sensors. , 2012, The journal of physical chemistry letters.

[28]  Jiali Zhang,et al.  Reduction of graphene oxide via L-ascorbic acid. , 2010, Chemical communications.

[29]  C. Chia,et al.  University of Malaya from the Selectedworks of Huang Nay Ming Simple Room-temperature Preparation of High- Yield Large-area Graphene Oxide Simple Room-temperature Preparation of High-yield Large-area Graphene Oxide , 2022 .

[30]  J. Robinson,et al.  Reduction of graphene oxide by electron beam generated plasmas produced in methane/argon mixtures , 2010 .

[31]  F. M. Peeters,et al.  Adsorption of H 2 O , N H 3 , CO, N O 2 , and NO on graphene: A first-principles study , 2007, 0710.1757.

[32]  Christine A Erdmann,et al.  Mucous membrane and lower respiratory building related symptoms in relation to indoor carbon dioxide concentrations in the 100-building BASE dataset. , 2004, Indoor air.

[33]  Probing the Thermal Deoxygenation of Graphene Oxide Using High-Resolution In Situ X-ray-Based Spectroscopies , 2011, 1108.5911.

[34]  Klaus Kern,et al.  Electronic transport properties of individual chemically reduced graphene oxide sheets. , 2007, Nano letters.

[35]  K W Tham,et al.  The effect of ventilation strategies of child care centers on indoor air quality and respiratory health of children in Singapore. , 2007, Indoor air.

[36]  Bart Partoens,et al.  Adsorption of small molecules on graphene , 2009, Microelectron. J..