Ultrathin Tungsten Oxide Nanowires/Reduced Graphene Oxide Composites for Toluene Sensing

Graphene-based composites have gained great attention in the field of gas sensor fabrication due to their higher surface area with additional functional groups. Decorating one-dimensional (1D) semiconductor nanomaterials on graphene also show potential benefits in gas sensing applications. Here we demonstrate the one-pot and low cost synthesis of W(18)O(49) NWs/rGO composites with different amount of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) which show excellent gas-sensing properties towards toluene and strong dependence on their chemical composition. As compared to pure W(18)O(49) NWs, an improved gas sensing response (2.8 times higher) was achieved in case of W(18)O(49) NWs composite with 0.5 wt. % rGO. Promisingly, this strategy can be extended to prepare other nanowire based composites with excellent gas-sensing performance.