Abstract
Table of content: NH3 interaction with Ag:rGO and corresponding changes in the band alignment of the sensor device.
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•The NH3 sensing is compared for Ag:rGO prepared with different reducing agents.•First-principles calculations explain the interaction between NH3 and Ag:rGO.•NaBH4 is an effective reducing agent due to favourable charge transfer kinetics.
We investigate economic room temperature sensors for toxic ammonia molecules (NH3) based on reduced graphene oxide decorated with silver nanoparticles (Ag:rGO) to provide a systematic understanding of the role played by the employed reducing agent. To this aim, we perform a comparative study of the sensing performance for a set of reducing agents, using a combination of experimental and theoretical methods. Specifically, Ag:rGO prepared with the reducing agents glucose, vitamin C, and sodium borohydride (NaBH4) is studied experimentally by the chemi-resistive method and is modelled theoretically by first-principles calculations. NaBH4 turns out to be an effective reducing agent due to favourable charge transfer kinetics by band bending.