Comparative study on humidity sensing abilities of synthesized mono and poly rhodium acryl amide tin oxide (RhAAm/SnO2) nanocomposites

Abstract The present work details the comparative study on humidity detection abilities of the Rhodium Acrylamide SnO2 (RhAAm/SnO2) and frontal polymerized RhAAm/SnO2 nanocomposites. The synthesized monomer and polymer were characterized with Scanning electron microscopy, Energy dispersive X-ray analysis, Particle size analyzer, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infra-red and UV–vis spectroscopies for the surface morphological studies, elemental mapping, analysis of particle size, structural analysis, vibrations stretching present among the constituent elements and optical energy band gap respectively. The porous structures were observed along with the presence of the Rh and SnO2 metal nanoparticles in the monomer and polymer. The minimum particle sizes were found to be 74 and 50 nm for monomer and polymer respectively which were observed by the dynamic light scattering technique. BET surface area analysis presents that the synthesized materials are a combination of micro and mesoporous materials. However, the Debye-Scherrer formula confirms that the average crystallite size of the monomer and polymer nanocomposites are 60 and 17 nm respectively. FTIR analysis suggests the presence of acrylamide. The hygrometric detection properties were studied for both materials. Better sensitivity, good repeatability along with low response and recovery time for the synthesized monomer as compared with the polymer-based humidity sensor were found.