Chemical Stability of 2D-Nanostructured WO3 in Hydrogen Sensing under Varied Operation Temperature

Abstract

Nanostructured metal oxide-based resistive-type gas sensors are of high research interest. Chemical stability is the most critical issue due to the surface electron species and density. In the present paper, 2D-nanostructured WO3 was prepared and characterized, and a WO3-based sensor was fabricated and analyzed. The results showed that the synthesized WO3 material exhibited nanosheet structure, and during hydrogen sensing testing, the current baseline shifted with various tendencies, even completely opposite directions under different operation temperatures. The chemistry analysis results indicated that water molecule and hydroxyl group were formed under low operation temperature but further oxidation occurred at higher temperatures. The adsorption of H2 on oxygen terminated WO3(0 0 1) surfaces by density functional theory (DFT) method indicated that a water molecule formed by adsorption of a hydrogen molecule at the O site with the most thermodynamically stable state, and two surface hydroxyl groups formed by dissociative adsorption with a thermodynamically less stable state. The water molecule and surface hydroxyl groups increased the conductivity of the WO3 film while that was decreased as the oxidation occurred.