Synthesis of hollow SnO2 nanobelts and their application in acetone sensor

Abstract Hollow tin oxide (SnO 2 ) nanobelts have been synthesized through a facile single capillary electrospinning method, and characterized by XRD, Raman, SEM, TEM and BET analysis. SnO 2 hollow nanobelts exhibit excellent sensing performances to acetone at 260 °C. The response is up to 6.7 when the sensor is exposed to 5 ppm acetone. The response and recovery times are about 38 and 9 s, respectively. The sensor can detect acetone down to 5 ppm and up to 50,000 ppm. These results demonstrate that SnO 2 hollow nanobelts can be used as the sensing material for fabricating high performance acetone sensors. The formation mechanism of the hollow nanobelts is also discussed, which is attributed to solvent evaporation rate, phase separation and collapse.