Research On Preparation And Gas-sensing Properties Of Graphene And Mesoporous Metal Oxides As Well As Their Corresponding Composite Materials

High purity graphite formed by the thermal decomposition of silicon carbide have been selected as raw material to prepare graphene via graphite oxide as intermediate by combining the Hummers method with chemical or thermal reduction. The resultant graphene could be comparable with those prepared from natural flake graphite. Especially, different thermally treating condition including temperature and time as well as atmosphere have been applied in the thermal reduction process, whereas high heating temperature and long heating time could facilite the remove of functional groups and result in better conductivity properties. Moreover, mesoporous metal oxide such as tin oxide and indium oxide have been successfully prepared via the nanocasting procedure by using mesoporous silica KIT-6with different pore sizes as hard template, which were prepared at different hydrothermal temperature. Furthermore, graphene and mesoporous metal oxide have been assembled into composite material via the ultrasonic mixing. Graphene and mesoporous metal oxides as well as their corresponding composite materials have been also fabricated into gas sensors and their gas-sensing properties towards different gases such as ethanol, acetone, formaldehyde, have been tested. The testing results shows that the introduction of a few graphene in mesoporous metal oxide could significantly improve their gas-sensing properties towards ethanol, suggesting the great potential of these materials in the field of gas sensor.