Excellent ethanol sensing properties of Pr-doped α-Fe2O3 nanotubes

Pure and Pr-doped α-Fe 2 O 3 nanotubes are successfully synthesized via electrospinning and following calcined method. The crystal, morphologies structures and composed of the as-prepared samples are investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), respectively. The researches of the gas sensing properties of the samples show that Pr-doped α-Fe 2 O 3 nanotubes possess excellent sensitive to ethanol, and the response value of Pr-doped α-Fe 2 O 3 nanotubes to 10 ppm ethanol is 21.3 at the operating temperature 240 °C, which is much higher than that of pure α-Fe 2 O 3 nanotubes (1.5). That is to say that the ethanol sensitive of α-Fe 2 O 3 nanotubes is improved remarkably by doping Pr. Moreover, Pr-doped α-Fe 2 O 3 nanotubes show good selectivity and long-term stability.