Tin oxide nanoparticles anchored on ordered mesoporous carbon for efficient acetone sensing

Rationally designed combinations of semiconductor metal oxides (SMO) and carbon materials can lead to the development of sensing materials with excellent gas performance. Herein, SnO₂ nanoparticles (NPs) decorated on ordered mesoporous carbon (CMK-3) nanorods were synthetized by solvothermal and high-temperature calcination methods. Various characterization and gas sensing tests indicated that the resulting one-dimensional (1D) self-assembled SnO₂@CMK-3 composite had a large specific surface area (88.02 m²/g) and excellent gas sensing performance. Specifically, at optimal working temperature, the as-prepared SnO₂@CMK-3 sensor had a high response (122.1), low limit of detection, good linear fitting (R²=0.9892), rapid response/recovery time (5/27 s) towards 50 ppm acetone. Meanwhile, by detecting six gases, including acetone, ammonia, formaldehyde, xylene, triethylamine, and ethanol, it was found that the SnO₂@CMK-3 sensor showed good selectivity to acetone. The unique nanostructure, large specific surface area, high oxygen vacancy content, and the formation of heterojunctions accounted for the good performance to acetone. These results highlighted the potential application of the SnO₂@CMK-3 composite for the detection of acetone gas and presented a promising approach to prepare SMO@carbon composites for VOCs detection.