In the present study, a simple approach has been presented to in situ deposition of Pd-doped well-crystallized SnO₂ nanocrystals on the surface of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in the ethanol solution of SnCl₂. The morphology, microstructure and surface chemistry of the as-prepared nanocomposites were characterized by high resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), respectively. The HRTEM and XRD results show that the well-crystallized SnO₂ nanocrystals with uniform crystal size (about 5 nm) tightly and homogenously coat on the entire surface of the MWCNTs. The carboxylic function groups on the MWCNTs surface may supply nucleation sites for facilitating the in situ deposition of SnO₂ nanocrystals. The XPS results reveal that the chemical states of the nanocomposites and the dopant of Pd mainly exists in two chemical states as Pd²⁺ and Pd⁴⁺. The response of the 2.5 at% Pd-doped SnO₂/MWCNTs nanocomposites to 1000 ppm NO at the temperature of 250 °C behaviors better, whose response time is about 70 s and the sensitivity is about 4.62.

Date Published: 12 April 2012
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 8409, Third International Conference on Smart Materials and Nanotechnology in Engineering, 84091K (12 April 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.923814

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8409:
Third International Conference on Smart Materials and Nanotechnology in Engineering
Jinsong Leng; Yoseph Bar-Cohen; In Lee; Jian Lu, Editor(s)