Multiwalled carbon nanotube based aromatic volatile organic compound sensor: sensitivity enhancement through 1-hexadecanethiol functionalisation

• Nadra Bohli,
• Meryem Belkilani,
• Juan Casanova-Chafer,
• Eduard Llobet and
• Adnane Abdelghani

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2364–2373, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.227

• sensitivity (up to 17 times), selectivity and improves the response dynamics of the sensors. Keywords: gold-decorated MWCNTs; multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs); self-assembled monolayers (SAMs); sensitivity; selectivity; vapour sensor; Introduction Aromatic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as

• 1011), operating at 100 kV. An Alpha FTIR spectrometer (Bruker, France) equipped with an ATR platinum crystal diamond module was used, in absorbance mode, to obtain the infrared spectra of the gold-decorated MWCNTs before and after the deposition of the SAM monolayer. This technique provides useful

• . The considerable decrease in the conductivity is due to the oxidizing nature of the injected vapours. As the tested oxygen-treated and gold-decorated MWCNTs are p-type semiconductors, the adsorption of the oxidant vapour molecules leads to a transfer of the majority carriers of p-type semiconductors