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An ultra-sensitive NH3 gas sensor enabled by an ion-in-conjugated polycroconaine/Ti3C2Tx core-shell composite

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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

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en

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9

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Nanoscale Horizons, Volume 8, issue 6, pp. 794-802

Abstract

MXenes are emerging sensing materials due to their metallic conductivity and rich surface chemistry for analytes; they, however, suffer from poor stability. Incorporation with functional polymers can largely prevent the performance decay and enhance the sensing performance. Herein, we demonstrate a core-shell composite, Ti3C2Tx@croconaine (poly(1,5-diaminonaphthalene-croconaine), PDAC) prepared by a facile in situ polymerization reaction, suitable for NH3 detection. Compared to pristine Ti3C2Tx, the sensor made of a Ti3C2Tx-polycroconaine composite exhibits a significantly enhanced sensitivity of 2.8% ppm−1 and an estimated achievable limit of detection of 50 ppb. The improved sensing performance could be attributed to the presence of PDAC facilitating the adsorption of NH3 and changing the tunneling conductivity between Ti3C2Tx domains. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that the adsorption energy of NH3 on PDAC is the highest among the tested gases, which supports the selectivity of the sensor to this analyte. Benefiting from the protection conferred by the PDAC shell, the composite has a reliable operation period of at least 40 days. In addition, we demonstrated a flexible paper-based sensor of the Ti3C2Tx@PDAC composite, without attenuated performance upon mechanical deformation. This work proposed a novel mechanism and a feasible methodology to synthesize MXene-polymer composites with improved sensitivity and stability for chemical sensing.

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Funding Information: This work was financially supported in part by Walter Ahlströmin säätiö and China Scholarship Council. We acknowledge funding from the Academy of Finland (Center of Excellence Program in Life-inspired Hybrid Materials (LIBER, No. 346108) and Project No. 330214). The authors thank Dr Rhodri Mansell and Sreeveni Das for the assistance in materials synthesis and measurements, and the personnel of the Centre for Material Analysis at the University of Oulu for technical assistance. Prof. Hannu-Pekka Komsa (University of Oulu) is also greatly acknowledged for his comments on the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

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Zhou, J, Hosseini Shokouh, S H, Cui, L, Järvinen, T, Pitkänen, O, Lv, Z-P & Kordas, K 2023, 'An ultra-sensitive NH 3 gas sensor enabled by an ion-in-conjugated polycroconaine/Ti 3 C 2 T x core-shell composite', Nanoscale Horizons, vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 794-802. https://doi.org/10.1039/d2nh00591c

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