(1.Chongqing Engineering Research Center of New Energy Storage Devices and Applications, Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, Chongqing 402160, China) (2. Science and Technology on Vacuum Technology and Physics Laboratory, Lanzhou Institute of Physics, Lanzhou 730000, China)
The minimum resolution, sensitivity, reliability and service life of SnO2 gas sensors are greatly affected by the microstructure of SnO2 besides the properties of SnO2 semiconductors. The differences of the sensitivity, working temperature and sensitive range to ethanol gas of SnO2 with different microscopic morphologies can reach ten times or even dozens of times. Therefore, in recent years, the research on improving the ethanol sensitivity of SnO2 materials and broadening the sensitive range mainly focuses on how to design and prepare SnO2 materials with different microscopic morphologies to improve their detection capabilities for ethanol gas. For example, the SnO2 microstructures with high stability, rough porosity, high specific surface area, and even mesoscopic periodicity, can be fabricated by different processes, which can greatly improve the sensitivity and sensitive range of the device. In this paper, the research progress of ethanol sensitive SnO2 materials is summarized from aspects of the morphology and preparation methods, porosity and specific surface area, working temperature, ethanol sensitivity characteristics. The influences of microstructures on the sensitivity of SnO2 materials are discussed to provide guidance for designing and manufacturing high-performance ethanol sensitive SnO2 materials.