Development of an alcohol sensor based on ZnO nanorods synthesized using a scalable solvothermal method

An one-step solvothermal synthesis technique has been developed to prepare uniform ZnO nanorods for gas sensor applications. Material characterization has included X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microcopy (SEM) and photoluminescence (PL). It has been found that ZnO nanorods prepared with ethanol solvent not only exhibit cleaner and smoother surfaces, larger crystallite size, reduced strain, smaller diameter and more donor-related surface defects, but also gave better gas sensing performance comparing to the ZnO nanorods prepared with pure water solvent. It was found that at alcohol level of 500 ppm, such sensor showed the response of 142, among the highest reported values achieved for ZnO nanorod sensors.