Application of Oxide Nanofibers Synthesized by Electrospinning to Chemical Sensors

Nanofibers, one of various one-dimensional nanomaterials such as nanorods, nanowires and nanotubes have been successfully synthesized by many groups in recent years and their applications to chemical sensors, catalytic filters and biomedicine, etc. are extensively tested. In particular, there is a possibility that chemical sensors based on oxide nanofibers can overcome the shortcomings of chemical sensors based on single nanowires. In order to prepare oxide nanofibers, the electrospinning method is most widely used. In this work, we synthesized various oxide nanofibers including ZnO, SnO2 and CuO by employing an electrospinning method and various shapes of nanofibers including core-shell nanofibers and hollow nanofibers as well. The response properties of the various nanofibers to oxidizing and reducing gaseous species have been investigated systematically. The normal oxide nanofibers showed high sensitivity and quite fast response time to many gaseous species. Furthermore, derivatives of normal nanofibers including hollow nanofibers, core-shell nanofibers and heterostructured nanofibers display much superior sensing properties. These results hold promise for the practical application of oxide nanofibers to chemical sensors. In addition, the sensing mechanisms operated in the nanofibers will be discussed in detail.