Advanced Functional Materials, Vol.19, No.11, 1767-1774, 2009
Synthesis, Mechanism, and Gas-Sensing Application of Surfactant Tailored Tungsten Oxide Nanostructures
Widely applicable nonaqueous solution routes have been employed for the syntheses of crystalline nanostructured tungsten oxide particles from a tungsten hexachloride precursor. Here, a systematic study on the crystallization and assembly behavior of tungsten oxide products made by using the bioligand deferoxamine mesylate (DFOM) (product I), the two chelating ligands hexadecyltrimethylammoniumbromide (CTAB) (II) and poly(alkylene oxide) block copolymer (Pluronic P123) (III) is presented. The mechanistic pathways for the material synthesis are also discussed in detail. The tungsten oxide nanomaterials and reaction solutions are characterized by Fourier transform IR, H-1, and C-13 NMR spectroscopies, powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution TEM, and selected-area electron diffraction. The indexing of the line pattern suggests WO3 is in its monoclinic structure with a=0.7297nm, b=0.7539nm, c=0.7688nm, and beta=90.91 degrees. The nanoparticles formed have various architectures, such as chromosomal shapes (product I) and slates (II), which are quite different from the mesoporous one (III) that has internal pores or mesopores ranging from 5 to 15 nm. The nanoparticles obtained from all the synthetic procedures are in the range of 40-60 nm. The investigation of the gas-sensing properties of these materials indicate that all the sensors have good baseline stability and the sensors fabricated from material III present very different response kinetics and different CO detection properties. The possibility of adjusting the morphology and by that tuning the gas-sensing properties makes the preparation strategies used interesting candidates for fabricating gas-sensing materials.