9938 | New J. Chem., 2017, 41, 9938--9946 This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 2017 Cite this: New J. Chem., 2017, 41, 9938 Fabrication of an acetone sensor based on facile ternary MnO 2 /Gd 2 O 3 /SnO 2 nanosheets for environmental safety Mohammed M. Rahman, * ab M. M. Alam c and Abdullah M. Asiri ab The facile hydrothermally synthesized (at low temperature, in alkaline medium of pH 10.5) nanosheets (NSs) of MnO 2 /Gd 2 O 3 /SnO 2 are well crystalline-doped ternary metal oxides. The prepared sample was characterized via Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), ultraviolet visible spectroscopy (UV/vis), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), energy- dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD). A thin layer of NSs was coated on a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) with the help of Nafion conducting binder to obtain a working electrode of a chemical sensor. The proposed chemical sensor was implemented to detect acetone at a low potential via the reliable I–V method. The features of the sensor include good sensitivity (0.1394 mA mM À1 cm À2 ), low detection limit (LOD = 0.068 Æ 0.003 nM, at a signal to noise ratio of 3), low limit of quantification (LOQ = 2.04 Æ 0.102 nM), good reliability and reproducibility, ease of integration, and long-term stability. The calibration plot (current vs. concentration at a potential of 1.5 V) is linear (R 2 = 0.9510) in the logarithmic scale over a large concentration range (from 0.34 nM to 3.4 mM). Thus, the presented chemical sensor is promising for the effective detection of hazardous and carcinogenic chemicals in ecological as well as environmental fields. 1. Introduction Acetone has various industrial applications in multiple areas. It is a highly volatile chemical and its inhalation, even at the ppm level, may cause headaches or fatigue in humans. 1 Currently, the breath analysis is a key tool in the public health sector to investigate a large range of diseases and this practice is rapidly becoming popular. 2–4 In industrialized countries, the third major reason for death is diabetes. 5 According to breath diagnosis reports, the concentration of acetone for a healthy human is maximum 0.8 ppm and 1.8 ppm for a diabetic patient. 6 Beside this, the central nervous system of human body may be seriously affected if the acetone concentration is more than normal in blood. 7 Thus, it is urgently needed to develop a sensitive and reliable method to detect acetone in the environment, work place, and human breath. 8,9 Moreover, for the monitoring of industrial process, environment, and toxic gases storages, chemical sensors are becoming the most important area of research. 10 Numerous semiconductor metal oxides have been implemented as successful sensing materials in chemical sensors to detect harmful and toxic materials in various areas. 11 Additionally, chemical sensors are used for the detection of hazardous mole- cules such as toxic chemicals in chemical control processes due to their numerous benefits over conventional chemical analysis in terms of response, large-surface area, portability, and monitor- ing of toxic chemicals in the environmental field. Conventional electrochemical methods with uncoated nanomaterial electrodes for acetone detection exhibit a slow response, surface fouling, unstable signals, noise, and low sensitivity. Hence, modification of the sensor surface with doped nanomaterials is very important to achieve more sensitive, repeatable, and stable responses. Therefore, simple and reliable I–V electrochemical approaches paired with relatively simple, convenient and inexpensive instru- mentation are required to obtain higher sensitivity and lower detection limits compared to that for conventional methods. Metal oxides such as SnO 2 , 12,13 ZnO, 14,15 In 2 O 3 , 16,17 Fe 2 O 3 , 18 Co 3 O 4 , 19 TiO 2 , 20 and WO 3 21 have been applied as chemical sensors. However, n-type tin dioxide (SnO 2 ) with a band gap energy of 3.6 eV has been comprehensively considered as an acetone sensing material and it has various advantages such as low manufacturing cost, high electron mobility, and good thermal and chemical stability. 22–25 According to W. Q. Li et al., an SnO 2 nanobelt based acetone sensor showed a wide linear a Chemistry Department, King Abdulaziz University, Faculty of Science, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia. E-mail: mmrahman@kau.edu.sa, mmrahmanh@gmail.com; Fax: +966-12-695-2292; Tel: +966-59-642-1830 b Center of Excellence for Advanced Material Research (CEAMR), King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia c Department of Chemical Engineering and Polymer Science, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet 3100, Bangladesh Received 25th April 2017, Accepted 30th July 2017 DOI: 10.1039/c7nj01372h rsc.li/njc NJC PAPER Published on 31 July 2017. 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