Abstract
As reported by experimental studies, decorating metal oxides with noble metals significantly raises their sensitivity to various chemicals. In this work, the sensing characteristics of the pure ZnO nanotube (ZnONT), as well as the Au@ZnONT (decorated with Au), were inspected towards the anti-cancer Platinol (PL) drug through density functional theory computations. PL is physically adsorbed on the pure ZnONT and the energy of adsorption (Ead) is − 6.1 kcal/mol, which is not possible to be detected since the sensing response is small at ambient temperature, i.e., 3.1. We decorated an Au atom on the center of a hexagon on the ZnONT surface and the Ead was − 37.3 kcal/mol. After decorating the nanotube with Au, there was an increase in Ead of PL as well as the sensing response (R) of the ZnONT. Ead increased to − 17.3 kcal/mol and R increased to 662.8. It can be deduced that the Au@ZnONT can be considered as an encouraging candidate to be used in PL sensors. Also, we anticipated a short recovery time (τ) (1.8 s) for the Au@ZnONT-based sensor. R for the Au@ZnONT to PL decreases from 662.8 in the gas phase (GP) to 505.5 in the water solvent.