ZnMoO₄ sensors obtained by hydrothermal method

Full text: Zinc molybdate (ZnMoO₄ ) has attracted a great deal of research attention due to its unique physical and chemical properties. It has a variety of application in microwave devices, optical fibers, photoluminescence, scintillator materials, photocatalysts as well as gas and humidity sensors. Although the humidity sensing properties of some nanocomposites contained ZnMoO₄ have been reported, there is little research on the humidity sensing properties of pure ZnMoO₄ [1] . In this work ZnMoO₄ powders are prepared using hydrothermal microwave methods [2], and their crystallographic structures have been determined using DRX and Rietveld refinement, the powders were also analyzed for surface morphology and thickness using MEV-FEG [2] . The zinc molybdate obtained by hydrothermal synthesis assisted by microwave monocrystalline structure has good sensitivity to humidity than 10³ kΩ and a response time of about 3 min mainly attributed to the grain geometry and its surface area. It can be concluded that the results are satisfactory and promising for application as humidity sensor devices. References: [1] A.M. Edwin Suresh RajAuthor Vitae, C. MallikaAuthor Vitae, K. Swaminathan Author Vitae, O.M. SreedharanAuthor Vitae, K.S. Nagaraja. Zinc(II) oxide-zinc(II) molybdate composite humidity sensor. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 81, 229-236, 2002. [2] L.S. Cavalcante, E. Moraes, M.A.P. Almeida, C.J. Dalmaschio, N.C. Batista, J.A. Varela, E. Longo, M. Siu Li, J. Andrés, A. Beltrán. A combined theoretical and experimental study of electronic structure and optical properties of β-ZnMoO₄ microcrystals. Polyhedron, 54, 13-25, 2013. (author)