Abstract Ethanol vapor monitoring technologies have received attention for guarding against dangerous accidents. However, existing ethanol sensors often have comparable sensing selectivity for many other gases, which interferes in their sensing ability. Furthermore, current sensors need to enhance their sensitivity over ethanol vapor with low concentrations. In this work, we developed amorphous ytterbium hexaboride (YbB6) alloy nanoparticles as novel sensing materials over ethanol vapor at room temperature. It showed a rapid (6 s/8s response/recovery time), stable, and selective response to ethanol vapor at 25 °C. Its detection limit was 10 ppb. Meanwhile, its response ratio of ethanol/methanol reached 20.8. We attribute the good sensing characteristics of the as-prepared YbB6 nanoparticles to the high specific surface area (167.8 m2 g−1) and catalytic activity of ethanol dehydration to form ethyl ether at 25 °C in air. In addition, it has a good anti-humidity ability in the RH range of 10%–90% due to the negligible impact of humidity on its permittivity at 100 kHz.

中文翻译：

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用于乙醇蒸汽传感的无定形六硼化镱纳米颗粒

摘要 乙醇蒸气监测技术在防范危险事故中受到重视。然而，现有的乙醇传感器通常对许多其他气体具有相当的传感选择性，这会干扰它们的传感能力。此外，电流传感器需要提高其对低浓度乙醇蒸汽的灵敏度。在这项工作中，我们开发了无定形六硼化镱 (YbB6) 合金纳米粒子作为室温下乙醇蒸汽上的新型传感材料。它对 25 °C 的乙醇蒸汽显示出快速（6 s/8s 响应/恢复时间）、稳定和选择性响应。其检测限为 10 ppb。同时，其乙醇/甲醇的响应比达到20.8。我们将所制备的 YbB6 纳米粒子的良好传感特性归因于高比表面积（167. 8 m2 g-1) 和乙醇在 25 °C 下在空气中脱水形成乙醚的催化活性。此外，由于湿度对其在 100 kHz 时的介电常数的影响可以忽略不计，因此它在 10%–90% 的 RH 范围内具有良好的抗湿能力。