Growth and properties of Ag-doped ZnO nanoflowers for highly sensitive phenyl hydrazine chemical sensor application

• Published in: Talanta (Oxford) 2012-05, Vol.93, p.257-263
• Main Authors: Ibrahim, Ahmed A., Dar, G.N., Zaidi, Shabi Abbas, Umar, Ahmad, Abaker, M., Bouzid, H., Baskoutas, S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ag-doped ZnO nanoflowers; Analytical chemistry; Biological and medical sciences; Chemical sensors; Chemistry; Chemistry Techniques, Analytical - instrumentation; Crystalline structure; Electrochemistry; Electrodes; Exact sciences and technology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General, instrumentation; Hydrazines; Limit of Detection; Molecular biophysics; Nanocomposites; Nanomaterials; Nanostructure; Nanostructures - chemistry; Nanotechnology - methods; Phenyl hydrazine chemical sensor; Phenylhydrazines - analysis; Phenylhydrazines - chemistry; Phenyls; Silver; Silver - chemistry; Structural and optical properties; Structure in molecular biology; Zinc oxide; Zinc Oxide - chemistry
• ISSN: 0039-9140; 1873-3573
• DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2012.02.030

► Facile synthesis of Ag-doped ZnO nanoflowers. ► Morphological, structural and optical characterizations. ► Fabrication of robust, highly sensitive, reliable and reproducible phenyl hydrazine chemical sensor. ► High sensitivity (∼557.108±0.012mAcm−2 (molL−1))−1 and low detection limit (∼5nM) for the fabricated chemical sensor. We report here the fabrication of a robust, highly sensitive, reliable and reproducible phenyl hydrazine chemical sensor using Ag-doped ZnO nanoflowers as efficient electron mediators. The Ag-doped ZnO nanoflowers were synthesized by facile hydrothermal process at low-temperature and characterized in detail in terms of their morphological, structural, compositional and optical properties. The detailed morphological and structural characterizations revealed that the synthesized nanostructures were flower-shaped, grown in very high-density, and possessed well-crystalline structure. The chemical composition confirmed the presence of Ag into the lattices of Ag-doped ZnO nanoflowers. High sensitivity of ∼557.108±0.012mAcm−2(molL−1)−1 and detection limit of ∼5×10−9molL−1 with correlation coefficient (R) of 0.97712 and short response time (10.0s) were observed for the fabricated chemical sensor towards the detection of phenyl hydrazine by using a simple current–voltage (I–V) technique. Due to high sensitivity and low-detection limit, it can be concluded that Ag-doped ZnO nanoflowers could be an effective candidate for the fabrication of phenyl hydrazine chemical sensors.