Ytterbium-Doped ZnO Flowers Based Phenyl Hydrazine Chemical Sensor

Herein, we report the fabrication and characterization of phenyl hydrazine sensor based on ytterbium (Yb) doped ZnO flowers composed of nanorods prepared by simple hydrothermal process. The as-synthesized nanomaterial was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) attached with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), Fourier transformation infrared (FTIR) and Raman-scattering spectroscopy which revealed the large-quantity synthesis, well-crystallinity and wurtzite hexagonal crystal structure of Yb-doped ZnO flowers. The fabricated phenyl hydrazine chemical sensor, by employing Yb-doped ZnO flowers as an electron mediator, exhibited sensitivity of ∼34.2 µA·mM^-1 ·cm^-2, detection limit of 24 mM and linear dynamic range of 0.25-4.0 mM. The presented work demonstrates that the Yb-doped ZnO nanomaterials are promising electron mediator which can be used for the fabrication of chemical sensors to detect various hazardous and toxic chemicals as phenyl hydrazine.