Reduced Graphene Oxide Screen Printed Thick Film as NO2 Gas Sensor at Low Temperature

Abstract

Most of the recent reduced graphene oxide (rGO) based sensors shows gas sensitivity above 50o to 150°C. The present investigation deals with the gas sensing at 50°C temperature. In the present research work, thick film sensors of rGO were developed on glass substrate by using standard screen-printing technique. The silver paste of rGO was used to make electrodes for contact on thick films for the electrical and gas sensing system. The electrical properties of rGO thick films such as resistivity, activation energy and temperature coefficient were studied. The resistivity of rGO thick films was found to be 84.84 Ω/m. The morphological, elemental and structural properties of rGO thick films were analyzed by SEM, EDS and XRD techniques respectively. The crystallite size of rGO thick films was found as 28.42 nm by using Scherer’s formula. The rGO thick films were prepared and exposed to Ethanol, NH3, NO2 and LPG gases to determine sensitivity and selectivity. The sensitivity of NO2 has been found to be maximum among other exposed gases. The maximum sensitivity of NO2 gas was 92.55 % at 50 °C found with fast response (~ 11 sec) and recovery (~ 19 sec) time.