Vanadium Oxide Nanoparticles For Dimethylamine Vapour Detection

Dimethylamine -((CH3)2N) (DMA), is one of the genotoxic highly volatile chemical compound that has significant biochemical effect on human genetic cells. In addition to the role of bio-marker in determining the fish freshness, dimethylamine is also used as a pre-cursor in many applications such as in the field of pesticides, dyes, plastics, etc., Therefore, to detect DMA at its early stage in commercial areas is of great importance in protecting the atmosphere as well as human health due to its irritability, combustibility, and toxicity. The reports on DMA sensing is in scarce and few reports that have been reported are at high temperature operation. Semiconducting metal-oxides are prominent material in chemical sensing due to its high sensitivity, faster response, and better stability. Hence, in the present work, vanadium pentoxide (V
₂
O
₅
) chemi-resistive sensor was developed to detect DMA vapours at room temperature for the minimum concentration of about 5 ppm. V
₂
O
₅
nanoparticles were synthesized using hydrothermal technique and its structural information has been obtained from X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy techniques. The morphology of the synthesized nanoparticles exhibited porous structure that have been observed using scanning electron microscopy. The DMA sensing studies have been carried out in a custom-made vapour sensing chamber at ambient temperature and relative humidity (25°C and 37%) for various concentrations of DMA and its sensor response (S) was calculated. Selectivity studies have been performed for various vapours and found that the synthesized nanoparticles were highly selective towards DMA vapours.