The gas sensor is essential to monitoring dangerous gases in our environment. Metal oxide (MO) gas sensors are primarily utilized for flammable, toxic and organic gases and O₃ because of their high sensitivity, high response and high stability. Tungsten oxides (WO₃) have versatile applications, particularly for gas sensor applications because of the wide bandgap and stability of WO₃. Nanosize WO₃ are synthesized using the hydrothermal method. Asprepared WO₃ nanopowders are in the form of nanorods and nanorulers. The crystal structure is hexagonal tungsten bronze (MxWO₃, x =< 0.33), characterized as a tunnel structure that accommodates alkali ions and the phase stabilizer. A gas detection test reveals that WO₃ can detect acetone, butanol, ethanol, and gasoline. This is the first study to report this capability of WO₃.

This study investigates the viability of using a Na-ion battery with a tin(Sn) anode to mitigate the vulnerability caused by volume changes during discharge and charge cycling. In general, the volume changes of carbon material do not cause any instability during intercalation into its layer structure. Sn has a high theoretical capacity of 847 mAh g⁻¹. However, it expands dramatically in the discharge process by alloying Na-Sn, placing the electrode under massive internal stress, and particularly straining the binder over the elastic limit. The repeating strain results in loss of active material and its electric contact, as well as capacity decrease. This paper expands the scope of fabrication of Na-ion batteries with Sn by fabricating the binder as an auxetic structure with a unique feature: a negative Poisson ratio (NPR), which increases the resistance to internal stress in the Na-Sn alloying/de-alloying processes. Electrochemical tests and micrograph images of auxetic and common binders are used to compare dimensional and structural differences. Results show that the capacity of an auxetic-structured Sn electrode is much larger than that of a Sn electrode with a common-structured binder. Furthermore, using an auxetic structured Sn electrode, stability in discharge and charge cycling is obtained.

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• Highly Flexible and Conductive Electrodes through Combining Honeycomb and Butterfly Pattern Bio‐Inspired Structure for ECG Signal Recording
  Qi Hou, Min Wang, Chunyang Han, Kuiyang Gao, Ruiyao Liu, Guofeng Yao
  Advanced Materials Interfaces.2022;[Epub]     CrossRef