Defective ZnO Nanoflowers Decorated by Ultra-Fine Pd Clusters for Low-Concentration CH4 Sensing: Controllable Preparation and Sensing Mechanism Analysis

To detect low concentration of CH4 is indeed meaningful in industrial manufacturing, such as the petrochemical industry and natural gas catalysis, but it is not easy to detect low concentration of CH4 due to its high symmetrical and stable structure. In this work, defect-rich ZnO1−x nanoflowers (NFs) were synthesized by a two-step route so as to obtain defect-enhanced gas-sensing performance, namely hydrothermal synthesis followed by H2 treatment. In order to achieve low-concentration detection of CH4, the ultra-thin Pd clusters’ (Cs, diameter about 1–2 nm) sensitizer was synthesized and decorated onto the surface of ZnO1−x NFs. It is found that Pd Cs-2/ZnO1−x gas sensors show enhanced gas-sensing properties to CH4, even at ppm concentration level. At its optimal working temperature of 260 °C, the gas response to 50 ppm CH4 can reach 5.0 with good gas selectivity; the response and recovery time is only 16.2 and 13.8 s, respectively. In the Results, we discussed the CH4 gas-sensing mechanism deeply. Overall, it is very necessary to detect low-concentration methane safely. It is possible for further safe detection of low-concentration methane gas in the future.