RETRACTED: Ordered Mesoporous Ag-ZnO@g-CN Nanohybrid asHighly Efficient Bifunctional Sensing Material (Retracted article. See vol. 7, 2020)

The development of highly efficient and multifunctional sensors for accurately detecting indoor climate has always remained a challenging task. In this work, an important progress for nanocasting synthesis of ordered mesoporous Ag-ZnO-loaded graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) prepared through template inversion of mesoporous silica, KIT-6, is presented. The cubic 3D ordered mesoporous Ag-ZnO@g-CN nanohybrid demonstrates excellent sensitivity, rapid response/recovery (5.1/2 s), excellent reversibility (0.3%), high stability, and negligible hysteresis (0.5%) to relative humidity (%RH) in the 11-98%RH range. Besides, it shows outstanding selective response (R = R-a/R-g) of 62.4 and 37.6 under dry and 90%RH environment, respectively, along with a fast response/recovery (16.1/10.5 s) time toward detection of acetone at 200 degrees C. In addition, the sensor shows excellent response at significant lower operating temperatures (R = 3.2 at 60 degrees C and R = 6.7 at 80 degrees C) to 50 ppm acetone gas. Compared to mesoporous Ag-ZnO, the g-CN supported Ag-ZnO nanocomposite shows approximate to 1.8 times better response to acetone while marking an impressive reduction in optimized operating temperature by 50 degrees C. The findings in this study add insight and assist in the further optimization of this new class of 2D layered ordered mesoporous materials in realizing next-generation sensors with multiple utilities.