Highly Sensitive Ethanol Chemical Sensor Based on Novel Ag-Doped Mesoporous α-FeO Prepared by Modified Sol-Gel Process.

Mesoporous α-FeO has been synthesized via a simple sol-gel procedure in the presence of Pluronic (F-127) triblock copolymer as structure directing agent. Silver (Ag) nanoparticles were deposited onto α-FeO matrix by the photochemical reduction approach. Morphological analysis revealed the formation of Ag nanoparticles with small sizes < 20 nm onto the mesoporous structure of α-FeO possessing < 50 nm semi-spherical shape. The XRD, FTIR, Raman, UV-vis, PL, and N sorption isotherm studies confirmed the high crystallinity, mesoporosity, and optical characteristics of the synthesized product. The electrochemical sensing toward liquid ethanol has been performed using the current devolved Ag/α-FeO-modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and current potential (I-V) techniques, and the obtained results were compared with bare GCE or pure α-FeO. Mesoporous Ag/α-FeO was found to largely enhance the sensor sensitivity and it exhibited excellent sensing characteristics during the precision detection of low concentrations of ethanol. High and reproducible sensitivity of 41.27 μAmM cm at lower ethanol concentration region (0.05 to 0.8 mM) and 2.93 μAmM cm at higher concentration zone (0.8 to 15 mM), with a limit of detection (LOD) of 15.4 μM have been achieved. Investigation on reaction kinetics revealed a characteristic behavior of mixed surface and diffusion-controlled processes. Detailed sensing studies revealed also that the sensitivity toward ethanol was higher than that of methanol or isopropanol. With further effort in developing the synthesis and fabrication approaches, a proper utility for the current proposed protocol for fabricating a better sensor device performance is possible.