Enhanced performance of humidity sensor based on Gr/hollow sphere ZrO2 nanocomposites

In the particular research work, a unique humidity sensor based on graphene doped with hollow spheres of zirconium dioxide (Gr/HS-ZrO2) nanocomposite material was prepared using the hydrothermal method with various weight percentages of graphene for use in humidity sensors. The surface morphologies and structural of the Gr/HS-ZrO2 nanocomposite have been characterized by Raman spectroscopy, TEM, EDX, and XRD; the electrical properties were analyzed based on the humidity variation on Gr/HS-ZrO2 nanocomposite. The experimental results exhibited that with 1 wt% Gr/HS-ZrO2 nanocomposite has excellent humidity sensing properties such as high sensing response (S = 1740), the rapid response was 11 s and recovery times was 30 s, indicating that Gr/HS-ZrO2 nano-composite will have great potential application in monitoring atmospheric humidity. Besides, the mechanism of humidity sensing of Gr/HS-ZrO2 nanocomposite has been explored in this paper. (C) 2021 Published by Elsevier B.V.