Few-Flakes Reduced Graphene Oxide Sensors for Organic Vapors with a High Signal-to-Noise Ratio
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Institute for Micromanufacturing, Center for Biomedical Engineering and Rehabilitation Services, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 71272, USA
2
School of Biomedical Engineering, Fourth Military Medical School, Xi’an 710032, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Nanomaterials 2017, 7(10), 339; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano7100339
Received: 23 September 2017
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Revised: 14 October 2017
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Accepted: 18 October 2017
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Published: 21 October 2017
This paper reports our findings on how to prepare a graphene oxide-based gas sensor for sensing fast pulses of volatile organic compounds with a better signal-to-noise ratio. We use rapid acetone pulses of varying concentrations to test the sensors. First, we compare the effect of graphene oxide deposition method (dielectrophoresis versus solvent evaporation) on the sensor’s response. We find that dielectrophoresis yields films with uniform coverage and better sensor response. Second, we examine the effect of chemical reduction. Contrary to prior reports, we find that graphene oxide reduction leads to a reduction in sensor response and current noise, thus keeping the signal-to-noise ratio the same. We found that if we sonicated the sensor in acetone, we created a sensor with a few flakes of reduced graphene oxide. Such sensors provided a higher signal-to-noise ratio that could be correlated to the vapor concentration of acetone with better repeatability. Modeling shows that the sensor’s response is due to one-site Langmuir adsorption or an overall single exponent process. Further, the desorption of acetone as deduced from the sensor recovery signal follows a single exponent process. Thus, we show a simple way to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in reduced graphene oxide sensors.
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Keywords:
graphene oxide; reduced graphene oxide; graphene gas sensor
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MDPI and ACS Style
Hasan, N.; Zhang, W.; Radadia, A.D. Few-Flakes Reduced Graphene Oxide Sensors for Organic Vapors with a High Signal-to-Noise Ratio. Nanomaterials 2017, 7, 339. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano7100339
AMA Style
Hasan N, Zhang W, Radadia AD. Few-Flakes Reduced Graphene Oxide Sensors for Organic Vapors with a High Signal-to-Noise Ratio. Nanomaterials. 2017; 7(10):339. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano7100339
Chicago/Turabian StyleHasan, Nowzesh, Wenli Zhang, and Adarsh D. Radadia. 2017. "Few-Flakes Reduced Graphene Oxide Sensors for Organic Vapors with a High Signal-to-Noise Ratio" Nanomaterials 7, no. 10: 339. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano7100339
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