ZnO-carbon nanofibers for stable, high response, and selective HS sensors.

Hydrogen sulfide (HS), as a typical atmospheric pollutant, is neurotoxic and flammable even at a very low concentration. In this study, we design stable HS sensors based on ZnO-carbon nanofibers. Nanofibers with 30.34 wt% carbon are prepared by a facial electrospinning route followed by an annealing treatment. The resulting HS sensors show excellent selectivity and response compared to the pure ZnO nanofiber HS sensors, particularly the response in the range of 102-50 ppm of HS. Besides, they exhibited a nearly constant response of approximately 40-20 ppm of HS over 60 days. The superior performance of these HS sensors can be attributed to the protection of carbon, which ensures the high stability of ZnO, and oxygen vacancies that improve the response and selectivity of HS. The good performance of ZnO-carbon HS sensors suggests that composites with oxygen vacancies prepared by a facial electrospinning route may provide a new research strategy in the field of gas sensors, photocatalysts, and semiconductor devices.