A flexible formaldehyde sensor based on palladium nanoparticles-polyvinylpyrrolidone-carbon nanotubes-nanocellulose composite films

A flexible formaldehyde sensor with high sensitivity was successfully fabricated by integrating palladium (Pd) nanoparticles, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and nanocellulose (NC) into composite films. The flexible composite films were fabricated via vacuum filtration. The morphology, structure, composition, crystallinity, and functional group of as-fabricated sensing materials were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, electron probe microanalyzer, Raman spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. Pd nanoparticles-PVP-MWCNTs-NC (Pd-PVP-MWCNTs-NC) composite films exhibited an 11-fold increase in formaldehyde sensitivity compared to MWCNTs-NC composite films. The excellent sensing performances of Pd-PVP-MWCNTs-NC sensors were attributed to the combination of Pd nanoparticles and PVP. The enhanced sensitivity is attributed to the synergistic effect of the high electron transfer from formaldehyde molecule to Pd nanoparticles and swelling of PVP due to sorption of formaldehyde molecule. Pd-PVP-MWCNTs-NC sensors still maintained good response under bending angle up to 30° and 300 bending cycles. The results demonstrate that the Pd-PVP-MWCNTs-NC composite films are highly promising in terms of sensitivity and flexibility for sub-ppm level formaldehyde detection at room temperature.