High-Performance Flexible Gas Sensor Using Natural Rubber/MXene Composite for Selective and Stable VOC Detection

Flexible gas sensors are gaining interest for real-time volatile gas monitoring. A natural rubber (NR)/MXene nanocomposite sensor is developed. Among the six selected target volatile gases, the composite sensor exhibited a strong response value (82% toward 100 ppm NH 3 ) with the fastest response/recovery time (12.3 s/15.5 s) to NH 3 . The sensitivity showed a clear dependence of gases, suggesting a good selectivity to varying gases. Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene gas sensors exhibited a very low limit of detection of 50–100 ppb for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at room temperature. In addition, the NR/MXene sensor allows detection of the mixture of ammonia (NH 3 ), dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and acetone (C 3 H 6 O) and it shows good response depending on the total concentration of VOC gases. Furthermore, the flexible nanocomposite sensor exhibits stable sensing performance at different bending states (0-120°) and shows 20-day atmospheric stability. This sensor's ability extends to alcohol breath analysis, useful for drunk driving detection. This work paves the way to the possibility of using robust MXene-based toward practical realization of electronic devices.