Development of high-performance fiber optic gas sensor based rice-like CeO2/MWCNT nanocomposite synthesized by facile hydrothermal route

In this report, a novel rice like CeO2/MWCNTs nanocomposite was synthesized by a facile hydrothermal route and explore the systematic investigation of the structural, morphological and elemental composition by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), energy dispersive spectra (EDS), N-2 adsorption-desorption and X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) analysis. XRD and FESEM studies reveal that cubic structure with an average particle size of 40-50 and 100-120 nm, which is homogeneously dispersed on the MWCNT. Impressively, CeO2/MWCNT showed a huge surface area of 108 m(2)/g and pore size 12.71 nm. The sensing characteristics were done using ammonia and ethanol gases with various concentrations (0-500 ppm) using fiber optic clad modified technique. The results demonstrate that CeO2/MWCNT deliver high sensitivity (78/counts/ppm), rapid response (17 s) and recovery time (9 s) towards ethanol gas.