Nanostructured mesoporous tungsten oxide for gas sensor applications

Due to their simple implementation, low cost and good reliability for real-time control systems, semiconductor gas sensors offer good advantages with respect to other gas sensor devices. As gas adsorption is a surface effect, one of the most important parameter to tailor the sensitivity of the sensor material is to increase the surface area. For these propose, mesoporous oxides have been synthesized. Nanostructured mesoporous materials present a large and controllable pore size and high surface are. For the preparation of ordered nanostructure arrays, a hard template method has been used. This method presents some advantages when compared with a soft template method, especially in its specific topological stability, veracity, predictability and controllability. Moreover, with this hard template method we can obtain crystalline mesoporous oxides, with small particle size and high surface area. We have used SBA-15 (two-dimensional hexagonal structure) and KIT-6 (three-dimensional cubic structure) as a template for the synthesis of different crystalline mesoporous WO3 with a particle size about 8-10 nm and high surface area. Low angle XRD spectra show a high order mesoporous structure, without rests of silica template. TEM confirms that the silica host has been completely removed; therefore, the nanowires constitute a self-supported superlattice. HRTEM studies have been focused on the detailed structural characterization of these materials. Electrical characterization of the sensor response in front of NO2 has been performed. Some catalytic additives have been also introduced, in order to increase the sensitivity of the material.