Researchers have designed hollow spheres of vanadium pentoxide made of self-assembled nanorods that can sniff out ammonia and ethanol1.
The researchers produced hollow spheres of vanadium pentoxide using the solvothermal method. The diameter of the hollow spheres was around 2-3 micrometre. Micro spheres were made of nanorods, which have diameters in the range of 100-200 nm and length of a few hundred nanometres.
The sensitivity of the nanosphere material linearly increased with different concentration of ethanol and ammonia. Clearly, the nanorods have more sensing response for ethanol than ammonia.
The research is significant as the nanostructured vanadium pentoxide shows potential applications in the field of lithium-ion batteries, actuators, catalysis and sensors.
The authors of this work are from: BU-DRDO Centre for Life Sciences, department of physics, and department of nanoscience and technology, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India.
