La(0.7)Sr(0.3)MnO3 nanoparticles based ultra-high sensitive ammonia chemical sensor.

A facile, reliable, reproducible and ultra-high sensitive aqueous ammonia chemical sensor has been fabricated based on the utilization of La(0.7)Sr(0.3)MnO3 nanoparticles (LSMO NPs), as efficient electron mediators, and reported in this paper. The LSMO NPs were prepared by hydrothermal protocol followed by the annealing process and characterized in detail in terms of their mophological, structural and compositional properties. The I-V technique based aqueous ammonia sensor exhibits an ultra-high sensitivity of 494.68 +/- 0.01 microA cm(-2)mM(-1) and very low-detection limit of 0.2 microM with a response time less than 10 s. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report in which LSMO is used as an efficient electron mediator for the fabrication of aqueous ammonia chemical sensor. Moreover, by comparing the literature, it is confirmed that the fabricated sensor exhibits highest sensitivity towards the detection of aqueous ammonia. This LSMO nanomaterial based research broadens the range of efficient electron mediators utilized for the fabrication of ultra-high sensitive chemical sensors.