PdO-Nanoparticle-Embedded Carbon Nanotube Yarns for Wearable Hydrogen Gas Sensing Platforms with Fast and Sensitive Responses.

Hydrogen (H) gas has recently become a crucial energy source and an imperative energy vector, emerging as a powerful next-generation solution for fuel cells and biomedical, transportation, and household applications. With increasing interest in H, safety concerns regarding personal injuries from its flammability and explosion at high concentrations (>4%) have inspired the development of wearable pre-emptive gas monitoring platforms that can operate on curved and jointed parts of the human body. In this study, a yarn-type hydrogen gas sensing platform (HGSP) was developed by biscrolling of palladium oxide nanoparticles (PdO NPs) and spinnable carbon nanotube (CNT) buckypapers. Because of the high loading of H-active PdO NPs (up to 97.7 wt %), when exposed to a flammable H concentration (4 vol %), the biscrolled HGSP yarn exhibits a short response time of 2 s, with a high sensitivity of 1198% (defined as Δ/ × 100%). Interestingly, during the reduction of PdO to Pd by H gas, the HGSP yarn experienced a decrease in diameter and corresponding volume contraction. These excellent sensing performances suggest that the fabricated HGSP yarn could be applied to a wearable gas monitoring platform for real-time detection of H gas leakage even over the bends of joints.