Nanoengineering of Phyllosilicates for Novel Gas Sensing Applications

This work investigates the novel employment of nanoengineered phyllosilicates as chemiresistive gas sensors towards the detection of volatile organic compounds, chemical warfare agents, toxic industrial chemicals, and a plethora of other analytes. By leveraging fundamental theories of metal oxide semiconductor gas sensing mechanism, material nanoengineering, and electrochemistry, the sensing mechanism, sensitivity, and cross-sensitivity of phyllosilicates as chemiresistive gas sensors is elucidated. To overcome the inherent limitations of sensitivity and selectivity, a morphological and compositional study of phyllosilicates is employed, where the morphology is varied to nano sheets, tubes, flowers, and amorphous structures, whereas the composition of the material is tuned via cation substitution and decoration with a breadth of metals. The attained results in this work exhibit the novel and promising applications of phyllosilicate in the field of electrochemical gas sensing by combining mass-transport control, electrical sensitization, and chemical sensitization on the nanoscale.