Environmental formaldehyde sensing at room temperature by smartphone-assisted and wearable plasmonic nanohybrids.

ABSTRACT: Formaldehyde is a toxic and carcinogenic indoor air pollutant. Promising for its routine detection are gas sensors based on localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). Such sensors trace analytes by converting tiny changes in the local dielectric environment into easily readable, optical signals. Yet, this mechanism is inherently non-selective to volatile organic compounds (like formaldehyde) and yields rarely detection limits below parts-per-million concentrations. Here, we reveal that chemical reaction-mediated LSPR with nanohybrids of Ag/AgO_x core-shell clusters on TiO₂ enables highly selective formaldehyde sensing down to 5 parts-per-billion (ppb). Therein, AgO_x is reduced by the formaldehyde to metallic Ag resulting in strong plasmonic si

SUBMITTER: Guntner AT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9949580 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature