Effect of addition of surfactant on LPG sensing properties of nano tin oxide based thick film sensors

Nanocrystalline tin oxide powder is synthesized using sol gel method. To observe the effect of addition of surfactant on particle size, Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate (SDS) is added during the synthesis. The particle is found to be ~ 8 nm using TEM. The synthesized nanophase tin oxide powder is used to fabricate thick film sensors using screen printing technique. The sensor performance is tested for 100 ppm of LPG. The role of surfactant is observed to be responsible for remarkable improvement in sensitivity for LPG by 5 times with low operating temperature of 110 °c. The optical and structural characterization of powder and film is done using UV-Vis, XRD, SEM; TEM. The repeatability, response and recovery time of the sensors is studied.