Green Synthesis of Metal Oxides Semiconductors for Gas Sensing Applications

Abstract

During recent decades, metal oxide semiconductors (MOS) have sparked more attention in various applications and industries due to their excellent sensing characteristics, thermal stability, abundance, and ease of synthesis. They are reliable and accurate for measuring and monitoring environmentally important toxic gases, such as NO2, NO, N2O, H2S, CO, NH3, CH4, SO2, and CO2. Compared to other sensing technologies, MOS sensors are lightweight, relatively inexpensive, robust, and have high material sensitivity with fast response times. Green nanotechnology is a developing branch of nanotechnology and aims to decrease the negative effects of the production and application of nanomaterials. For this purpose, organic solvents and chemical reagents are not used to prepare metal nanoparticles. On the contrary, the synthesis of metal or metal oxide nanoparticles is done by microorganisms, either from plant extracts or fungi, yeast, algae, and bacteria. Thus, this review aims at illustrating the possible green synthesis of different metal oxides such as ZnO, TiO2, CeO2, SnO2, In2O3, CuO, NiO, WO3, and Fe3O4, as well as metallic nanoparticles doping.