Abstract
Herein, a simple, economical and low temperature synthesis of leaf-shaped CuO nanosheets is reported. As-synthesized CuO was examined through different techniques including field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution TEM (HRTEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier transform infrared spectroscopic (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy to ascertain the purity, crystal phase, morphology, vibrational, optical and diffraction features. FESEM and TEM images revealed a thin leaf-like morphology for CuO nanosheets. An interplanar distance of similar to 0.25 nm corresponding to the (110) diffraction plane of the monoclinic phase of the CuO was revealed from the HRTEM images XRD analysis indicated a monoclinic tenorite crystalline phase of the synthesized CuO nanosheets. The average crystallite size for leaf-shaped CuO nanosheets was found to be 14.28 nm. Furthermore, a chemo-resistive-type gas sensor based on leaf-shaped CuO nanosheets was fabricated to effectively and selectively detect H2S gas. The fabricated sensor showed maximum gas response at an optimized temperature of 300 degrees C towards 200 ppm H2S gas. The corresponding response and recovery times were 97 s and 100 s, respectively. The leaf-shaped CuO nanosheets-based gas sensor also exhibited excellent selectivity towards H2S gas as compared to other analyte gases including NH3, CH3OH, CH3CH2OH, CO and H-2. Finally, we have proposed a gas sensing mechanism based upon the formation of chemo-resistive CuO nanosheets.