Facile synthesis of novel MoO3 nanoflowers for high-performance gas sensor

In our work, the novel sparsely and compactly MoO3 nanoflowers were synthesized by a hydrothermal method assisted with polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) and without any template, respectively. Through X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy, we can confirm that we have prepared high purity MoO3 and can observe that both nanoflowers are formed by self-assembly of thin nanosheets. They have similar morphology, size and formation mechanism, but differ from pore size and quantity. Because of the above differences, sparsely MoO3 nanoflowers have a larger specific surface area and form more enclosed micro-reaction chambers that make it difficult for ethanol to escape. Allowing gas molecules to be more widely distributed among the sparsely sample surface and obtained fully reaction time. Thus, the gas sensor based on compactly MoO3 nanoflowers exhibits a better response and recovery characteristic.