Journal Article

Enhancing the responsiveness of porous LaFeO3 microspheres to ethanol under high humidity

Yang, Hang-Fan, Liu, Shuai, Wang, Ze-Lin, Qiu, Jie, Qu, Wen-Long, Cui, Yan, Li, Shu, Chen, Guo-Xiang

2025

Overview

Perovskite oxide has good sensitivity to VOCs gases, but its gas-sensitive properties are negatively affected by high humidity, thereby limiting its potential application in respiratory gas detection. This study focuses on synthesizing porous LaFeO 3 of perovskite type used a dual-process method involved hydrothermal synthesis with thermal treatment. The morphology and evolution of porous LaFeO 3 microspheres was studied. The LaFeO 3 sensors exhibited p-type gas-sensitive behavior with notable selectivity for respiratory gases. The LaFeO 3 sensor represented a significant response value of 9.7 to a 100 ppm C 2 H 5 OH concentration, with a rapid response/recovery time of 8 s/9 s at 300 °C. The sensor demonstrated a high response ( S  = 4.2) and a low detection limit of 100 ppb at 90% relative humidity. The superior sensor performance was due to the porous surface structure of LaFeO 3 microspheres, which improved the gas diffusion channels and reaction sites with microspheres. The density of states map revealed a strong orbital hybridization between C 2 H 5 OH and LaFeO 3 , resulted in a calculated adsorption energy of − 1.18 eV, signified a strong adsorption affinity in line with the experimental results. Graphical abstract

• Publisher: Springer US,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Adsorption / Characterization and Evaluation of Materials / Chemical Routes to Materials / Chemistry and Materials Science / Classical Mechanics / Crystallography and Scattering Methods / detection limit / energy / Ethanol / Ferrites / Gaseous diffusion / Gases / Heat treatment / Humidity / Lanthanum compounds / Materials Science / microparticles / Microspheres / Perovskites / Polymer Sciences / Recovery time / Relative humidity / Sensors / Solid Mechanics / Surface structure