A novel multifunctional BVO-T₁Y₈ porous nanofibers for multi-selective gas sensing and real-time temperature monitoring

High-sensitivity and multi-function are of paramount importance in the development of sensors. To this end, a new type of Tm³⁺, Yb³⁺ co-doped BiVO₄ inorganic porous nanofibers is proposed, which realizes high sensitivity response to NO₂ and methylbenzene, and provides real-time working temperature. The gas sensor can detect the operating temperature by the intensity ratio of the relative intensity bands of Tm³⁺ emission, which associated with two thermally coupled levels, i.e., ³F_2,3 → ³H₆/³H₄ → ³H₆ (690/796 nm) intensity ratio, and the maximum relative sensitivity is as high as 0.0237 K⁻¹. While the temperature detection is realized, the addition of rare earth ions also greatly improves the gas sensing performance. More interestingly, the sensing material BVO-T₁Y₈ porous nanofibers have excellent selectivity and long-term stability, respectively to 3 ppm NO₂ at 200 °C and 100 ppm methylbenzene at 340 °C, with the highest response reaching 5.7 and 4.2. In general, the high gas sensitivity and multi-selectivity nanofibers with real-time temperature monitoring performance provides a new attempt for the application of multi-functional sensing materials in processing industrial waste gas.