Gas-Sensitive Enhancement of rGO/HMWCNTs/PANI Ternary Composites

This work reports a manufacturing method of NH
₃
gas sensor based on reduced graphene oxide/hydroxylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes/polyaniline (rGO/HMWCNTs/PANI) ternary composites. Firstly, rGO/HM-WCNT composites are fabricated from GO/HMWCNTs suspension via hydrothermal reduction method. Secondly, the rGO/HMWCNTs composites and aniline monomers are used to synthesize rGO/HMWCNTs/PANI ternary composites by in-situ chemical oxidative polymerization. The results indicate that the rGO/HMWCNTs/PANI ternary composites have significantly higher sensitive properties to NH
₃
gas compare to pure PANI and HMWCNTs/PANI binary composites. Its response to NH
₃
gas is respectively about 4.8 times that of pure PANI and 2.2 times that of HMWCNTs/PANI binary composites over the concentration range of 10–1000 ppm. The main reason may be that this method not only improves dispersion of HMWCNTs in PANI due to introduction of GO, but also maintains good charge transfer between HMWCNTs and PANI owing to hydrothermal reduction of GO to rGO, thus enhancing NH
₃
gas-sensitive properties of the ternary composites.