Highly sensitive electrospun SnO2-ZnO composite nanofibers for low concentration ethanol detection

The present work demonstrates the sub-ppm detection of ethanol using electrospun SnO
2
-ZnO composite nanofibers on interdigitated gold electrodes (IDGE). The fabricated sensor has shown excellent % response of 43.4 % at 0.5 ppm and 371 % at 100 ppm of ethanol. The sensor is appreciably selective towards ethanol and has shown fast response and recovery. The high % response of the sensor is attributed to the high specific surface area and low crystallite size of 55.43 nm. The adsorption reaction process at n-n heterojunction interface is used to explain the ethanol sensing mechanism of the composite. Further, XRD, XPS and FESEM analysis have been done to study the crystal structure, valence states and surface morphology of the SnO
2
-ZnO composite.