Recent progress in applications of graphene oxide for gas sensing: A review

Abstract

This paper is a review of the recent progress on gas sensors using graphene oxide (GO). GO is not a new material but its unique features have recently been of interest for gas sensing applications, and not just as an intermediate for reduced graphene oxide (RGO). Graphene and RGO have been well known gas-sensing materials, but GO is also an attractive sensing material that has been well studied these last few years. The functional groups on GO nanosheets play important roles in adsorbing gas molecules, and the electric or optical properties of GO materials change with exposure to certain gases. Addition of metal nanoparticles and metal oxide nanocomposites is an effective way to make GO materials selective and sensitive to analyte gases. In this paper, several applications of GO based sensors are summarized for detection of water vapor, NO2, H2, NH3, H2S, and organic vapors. Also binding energies of gas molecules onto graphene and the oxygenous functional groups are summarized, and problems and possible solutions are discussed for the GO-based gas sensors.

Keywords: Applications to hazardous gas sensing; Gas molecule binding energy; Gas sensor; Graphene oxide; Reduced graphene oxide.