Comparative investigation of gas sensing performance of liquefied petroleum gas using green reduced graphene oxide-based sensors

Herein, we report the comparative gas sensing performance (at room temperature) of reduced graphene oxide sensors obtained by reducing graphene oxide using extracts of pumpkin leaf, neem leaf and methionine. An interdigitated pattern was designed on soda-lime glass using a stamp method and the dispersed solution of rGO was spin coated on the pattern. The electrical response of the sensors was investigated (using a simple in-house measurement set up) by measuring change in resistance of graphene with varying gas concentration on exposure to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). From the characterization results using FTIR, SEM, EDX and UV-Visible, methionine reduced graphene oxide (MRGO 12H) indicated a greater degree of reduction compared to pumpkin reduced graphene oxide (PRGO 12H) and neem reduced graphene oxide (NRGO 12H). The LPG sensing results showed an increase in the resistance of the sensor materials upon the introduction of the gas and, an increased sensitivity as the concentration of the test gas increased from 100 ppm to 200 ppm while the MRGO 12H sensor was more selective towards LPG sensing. Furthermore, it was observed that the sensor response for the fabricated sensors is strongly dependent on the concentration of gas exposed to the sensors and the degree of removal of oxygen functional groups in the graphene-based materials. Hence, the MRGO 12H sensor had a sensor response of 23.58% at 200 ppm. PRGO 12H at 100 ppm illustrates the least sensor response while NRGO 12H showed very poor sensor response that ranged between 5.10% and 7.56%. The sensor response of the materials demonstrates an improvement in results obtained for pure rGO based sensors. We obtained a response time as low as 5.3 seconds for MRGO 12H while the recovery time of the sensors ranged between 6.46 seconds and 41.50 seconds. The MRGO 12H sensor typified the best recovery time and thus outperformed results from most of the reported literature. Considering different performance metrics such as sensor response, response time, recovery time and sensing period, MRGO 12H is more selective towards detecting LPG. Our results showed that a greater restoration of the sp(2) carbon chain brought about by increased reduction of graphene oxide is largely responsible for the sensing behavior of rGO towards LPG.