Room temperature H2S sensing properties and mechanism of CeO2-SnO2 sol-gel thin films

Using non-alkoxide SnCl2 . 2H(2)O, Ce(NH4)(2)(NO3)(6) as precursors, room temperature H2S gas sensitive CeO2-SnO2 thin films have been obtained. In this paper, the synthesis process of CeO2-SnO2 thin films has been introduced; the gas sensing properties of the CeO2-SnO2 thin films were investigated and compared with those of SnO2 and ZrO2-SnO2 thin films. The experiments illustrate that CeO2-SnO2 thin film has quite a quick response and recovery behavior, high selectivity, and has better sensitivity than that of ZrO2-SnO2 thin film toward low concentration of H2S at room temperature. The sensing mechanism of CeO2-SnO2 thin films toward H2S at room temperature has also been discussed in this paper. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.