Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 J Mater Sci: Mater Electron DOI 10.1007/s10854-017-6632-0 Hydrogen, ethanol and ammonia gas sensing properties of nano- structured titanium dioxide thick flms Sapana S. Rane 1,2  · Deepak A. Kajale 3  · Sudhir S. Arbuj 3  · Sunit B. Rane 3  · Suresh W. Gosavi 4   Received: 30 December 2016 / Accepted: 20 February 2017 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017 very important in environment monitoring in various felds such as the industrial emission, household security, vehicle emission control, health, agriculture etc. However, only few of them are suitable for all the requirement of gas sensors with high sensitivity, good response and recovery time, good selectivity and long term stability. The sensing mech- anism of these sensors involves adsorption of oxygen from atmosphere on the surface of oxide which extracts electrons from the semiconducting material leading to change in car- rier density and conductivity. Upon interaction with the oxidizing or reducing gases, adsorbed oxygen concentra- tion and thereby changes the conductivity [1, 2]. Hydrogen is a renewable, abundant, efcient energy source which provides zero emissions. Therefore in the near future, it could be used as city gas or to fuel vehicles simi- lar way to that of natural gas is being used. H 2 has a lower explosion limit @ 40,000 ppm, a device which detects its presence at lower concentrations becomes indispensible [3–7]. Ethanol sensors have attracted attention due to their biomedical, chemical and food industry applications specif- ically for the need of detection of alcohol on human breath to prevent drunk driving or leakages in industries. Now a days the research focused on ethanol monitoring as etha- nol could serve as non toxic organic solvent and also play a crucial role in beverages, industrial and scientifc sectors and also as an alternative fuels to automotive [2, 8]. There is extensive use of ammonia in many chemical industries, i.e., fertilizer factories, refrigeration systems, etc., hence a leak in the system leading to the health hazards as Ammo- nia is harmful and toxic in nature. Therefore exposure of ammonia causes chronic lung disease, irritating and even burning the respiratory track, etc. It is, therefore, necessary to monitor ammonia gas and to develop the ammonia gas sensor [9]. Abstract Pure nanocrystalline TiO 2 thick flms have been prepared by doctor blade technique on glass substrate. The nanostructural properties of the powder as well as thick flms and gas sensing performance of the TiO 2 thick flms towards hydrogen, ethanol and ammonia gases have been studied and presented here. The experimental results revealed that these nanostructured TiO 2 flms are sensitive to diferent gases such as hydrogen, ammonia and ethanol at low operating temperature close to 55–65 °C. The TiO 2 flm shows highest sensitivity towards ammonia gas as compared to hydrogen and ethanol. 1 Introduction Chemical/ gas sensors based on semiconductor metal oxide (ZnO, SnO 2 , TiO 2 , In 2 O 3 , WO 3 , CeO 2 ,… etc) are * Sapana S. Rane spna_rane@redifmail.com * Suresh W. Gosavi swg@physics.unipune.ac.in Sudhir S. Arbuj sudhir1305@gmail.com Sunit B. Rane sunitrane@yahoo.com 1 Department of Electronics, Mamasaheb Mohol College, Paud Road, Pune 411038, India 2 Department of Electronic Science, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune 411007, India 3 Centre for Materials Electronics Technology, Of Pashan Road, Panchawati, Pune 411008, India 4 Department of Physics, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune 411007, India