Fabrication of Fast and Reliable Pulse Laser-Ablated ZnO Nanoparticles-Based Formaldehyde Sensor

In this article, we report the synthesis techniques of ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) in open air atmosphere by pulse laser ablation (PLA) method using solid ZnO polycrystalline palette followed by fabrication of formaldehyde (HCHO) sensor. The crystalline phase and morphology of the obtained ZnO NPs were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), respectively. The XRD patterns showed that the NPs were polycrystalline structure with good crystallinity. The FESEM images revealed that the NPs were spherical in shape and loosely agglomerated. The average diameter of the NPs was in the range of 30-43 nm. Moreover, the ZnO NPs-based sensor exhibited excellent formaldehyde sensing performance at a temperature of 350 °C. The sensor exhibited a gas response of about 5.2 toward 300 ppm formaldehyde with 25 s response and 12 s recovery time. Furthermore, the ZnO NPs-based sensor exhibited excellent reliability and reproducibility to formaldehyde. On the other hand, the sensor showed high sensitivity of about 0.2% ppm
^-1
to formaldehyde with a 50 ppm lower detection limit. In addition, the sensor showed an excellent linear relationship ( R
²
= 0.7948) between the response and the concentration of formaldehyde in the range of 50-400 ppm. This work demonstrates that PLA in open air is a rapid and cost-effective method for synthesizing metal oxide NPs for gas-sensing applications without the need for wet chemical routes.