Peanut-like mesoporous tungsten oxides via a synergistic templating strategy for efficient isoprene detection

In this study, a simple and efficient strategy to prepare peanut-like mesoporous tungsten oxide using o-nonylic acid and triblock copolymer PtBA₄₅PS₉₂PEO₁₁₇ as synergistic templates was developed. Compared to traditional methods for the synthesis of highly ordered mesoporous metal oxides using PS-PEO as a single template, synergistic templates can form new hierarchical structures. The peanut-like tungsten oxide sphere with an open mouth on its surface has two monodisperse microspheres; the diameter range in the long dimension of the mesoporous tungsten oxides is approximately 1.0–2.0 μm. The peanut-like mesoporous tungsten oxide shows good gas-sensing properties toward isoprene with a low concentration (10–50 ppm) at an operating temperature of 205 °C, with the relative humidity of the testing environment at approximately 80%, and at sensing response/recovery times of approximately 12 s and 71 s, respectively. The outstanding selectivity to isoprene is ten and three times greater than that of ethanol and acetone, respectively.