A biomimetic nest-like ZnO: Controllable synthesis and enhanced ethanol response

Abstract We reported a facile and controllable route to prepare nest-like ZnO without any complicate experimental equipments, pressure and gas control procedures. The nest-like ZnO was made within a muffle furnace in air atmosphere under normal pressure through a simple carbon thermal reduction reaction. The product was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and photoluminescence (PL). The results showed that the product was wurtzite ZnO and had an interesting hollow nest-like microstructure with a prickly porous shell. The shell consisted of ZnO nanospheres, and a few ZnO nanorods grew on the shell surface. The gas sensing test indicated that the nest-like ZnO had an excellent gas sensing behavior toward ethanol. The response of the sensor to 50 ppm ethanol was about 100, which was at least four times more than other gases. Moreover, even down to 1 ppm ethanol, the response still reached 3.8. Both the response time and recovery time of the sensor were short. All of these proved that the nest-like ZnO is a promising gas sensing material for ethanol detecting.