Room Temperature Ammonia Gas Sensing Characteristics of Co3O4

Room temperature ammonia gas-sensing characteristics of Co3O4 pellet sensor are reported in this paper. For this purpose, Co3O4 powder is prepared by a route of simple precipitation + heating at 800 °C/2 hr. The as-prepared powder is characterized by using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The ammonia gas-sensing properties of Co3O4 pellets made at various loads of 3, 5, 7 & 9 ton and at constant time = 4 min. are measured using home-built static gas sensing system. The characterization studies revealed that the cobalt oxide particles formed are cubic spinel Co3O4, highly pure and spherical in shape. The particle size distribution is found to be nearly uniform with average particle size ~ 1 μm. The ammonia gas sensing properties of Co3O4 pellet sensor are found to be good. The highest sensitivities – S.F. = 175 and 358 are found at ~ 25 ppm and 250 ppm concentrations of ammonia gas respectively for the Co3O4 pellet sensor made at the load = 3 ton. Further, an admirable repeatability and reversibility in the ammonia gas sensing characteristics are observed for all the Co3O4 pellet sensors. The average response time of 4.0 min. and recovery time of 3.0 min. are obtained for all the Co3O4 pellet sensors.