Ag/SnO2/In2O3 ternary composites for enhanced ammonia detection at low temperature

Developing low-cost, realistic low temperature operable ammonia sensor is highly desirable in industrial for environmental monitoring. This paper focuses on the preparation of Ag nanoparticles-loaded SnO 2 /In 2 O 3 ternary composites by combining both indium oxide and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) compounds by hydrothermal method . They both remain as pure In 2 O 3 flakes and the size of each flake matrix is about 2 μm, which indicates that both Ag loading and SnO 2 composite have not damaged or changed the crystal structure of the In 2 O 3 -based composites. The best response gas for the Ag/SnO 2 /In 2 O 3 material was ammonia with a response value of 9.783 at the optimum operating temperature of 160 °C. The difference in each set of data after three cycles of testing was not more than 0.25. The tests showed that the sensor had good reproducibility and sensitivity, and had a low detection limit.