Nanoarchitectonics of polyaniline–zinc oxide (PANI–ZnO) nanocomposite for enhanced room temperature ammonia sensing

For the efficient detection and monitoring of dangerous gases across a variety of sectors, gas sensors are crucial. This work is focused on the fabrication of room temperature ammonia sensor based on polyaniline (PANI) and its nanocomposite with zinc oxide (ZnO) via facile in-situ chemical polymerization method. A number of different samples with varying amount of ZnO incorporated in polyaniline matrix and studied ammonia sensing properties for the temperature range 20–100 °C. In comparison with pristine PANI and other prepared sensors, the ammonia sensor containing 20 wt% ZnO in PANI (PZ20) showed greater gas sensing performance. The proposed sensor exhibited the response of 1.43–25.24% for 5–200 ppm of NH3 with 5 ppm as lower limit of detection and 18 s as response time. In addition, the sensor exhibited good repeatability, long-term durability and selectivity over other gaseous analytes, such as H2, C2H5OH, NO2, CO and CO2. The proposed ammonia sensor showed its potential towards detection of ammonia at ambient environmental conditions. Graphical abstract