Gas Nanosensors

The gas sensors are devices that allow to detect an analyte in the ambient atmosphere and determine its concentration from the sensor response. The gas sensors are widely utilized in environmental protection, healthcare, indoor air quality control, home safety monitoring, and food industry. The low-dimensional chalcohalide nanomaterials are attractive for use in gas sensors due to their large surface to volume ratio. The recent achievements in application of chalcohalide nanomaterials in gas sensors are reviewed in this chapter. Four main types of the gas detectors are presented: conductometric, photoconductive, impedance, and quartz crystal microbalance sensors. The working principles and the fundamental features of the aforementioned types of gas sensors are discussed. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the chalcohalide sensors design and their sensing performance, such as sensitivity, detection limits, selectivity against the interfering gases, response kinetics, its hysteresis, stability, repeatability, and reversibility. An influence of the operating temperature and ferroelectric properties on the sensors responses is demonstrated. The mechanisms of the various gases detection are also explained.