The gas sensing properties of one-pot prepared porphyrin-ZnO nanoparticles

Hybrid materials formed by a layer of dye molecules over a wide-band gap semiconductor, are widely studied mainly for optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications. However, besides the conversion of visible photons into an excess of carriers, the combination of organic-inorganic materials offers other additional properties, such as chemical sensing. ZnO and porphyrins are a good example of the combination of a metal oxide semiconductor and a dye molecule. In this paper we investigated the sensing properties of one-pot prepared ZnO nanoparticles, by means of chemoresistive transduction. The results indicate that the presence of porphyrins in the precursor solution affects both the morphology and the sensing properties. This result is important for sensor arrays design, where broadly-selective, but different sensors are required.