Titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) nanoparticles reinforced polyvinyl formal (PVF) nanocomposites as chemiresistive gas sensor for sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) monitoring

The present work reports the preparation of polyvinyl formal (PVF)/Titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) nanocomposite films using a solution casting method followed by the characterization of the synthesized PVF/TiO 2 nanocomposite films using various analytical techniques namely FTIR, XRD, UV–vis, SEM and TGA analysis. The results obtained from different analyses confirmed that the TiO 2 NPs was fine dispersed within the PVF matrix and there exists well compatibility among the polymer matrix and the nanofiller. The pristine TiO 2 NPs based fabricated chemiresistive sensor exhibits the maximum sensitivity of 50.25% at 370 °C where as PVF/TiO 2 nanocomposite sensor showed the enhanced sensitivity of 83.75% at a relatively low operating temperature of 150 °C towards 600 ppm sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) gas. The 25 wt% PVF/TiO 2 nanocomposite film sensor exhibited good sensitivity (∼83.75%), selectivity, rapid response time (66 s)/recovery time (107 s), and long-term stability of 60 days for SO 2 gas detection. The fabricated PVF/TiO 2 nanocomposite film sensors in our work possesses the advantages of low power consumption, cost-effective, and distinguished sensing abilities for SO 2 detection makes it possible for potential applications. Thus, the fabricated chemiresistive sensors based on TiO 2 NPs reinforced PVF nanocomposites films are evaluated and experimental results to show an excellent behavior towards SO 2 gas detection for industrial processes control and environmental monitoring applications.