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Cotton-Templated, Defect-Engineered LaFeO₃ Ceramics Coupled with MXene for Low-Temperature, Selective NO₂ Sensing

Yikun Wang, Wei Zhao, Yang Chen

Division of Environment Metrology, Jiangsu Institute of Metrology, Nanjing, China

received October 7, 2025, received in revised form October 31, 2025, accepted November 6, 2025

Pages 1-12   DOI: 10.4416/JCST2025-00028

Abstract

This study reports on the rational design of a high-performance, low-temperature nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) gas sensor with a multi-scale material engineering strategy that integrates cotton-templated morphology control, oxygen vacancy defect engineering, and MXene heterostructuring. Porous LaFeO₃ ceramics synthesized via cotton biotemplating exhibited a fourfold increase in surface area (65.8 m²/g) compared with pristine LaFeO₃ (15.2 m²/g), while controlled reducing-atmosphere calcination induced a high oxygen vacancy fraction of 25.3 %, as confirmed by XPS analysis. Coupling defect-engineered LaFeO₃ (DE-LFO) with Ti₃C₂T_x MXene nanosheets is expected to form a p-p contact that amplifies sensing. The optimized DE-LFO/MX-4 composite demonstrated an ultrahigh response of 14.2 (S = R_a/R_g) toward 5 ppm NO₂ at 25 °C, more than 11 times higher than pristine LaFeO₃, with exceptionally fast response and recovery times of 8 s and 25 s, respectively. The sensor showed reliable detection down to 12 ppb, linear response in the 0.1 – 2 ppm range (R² = 0.995), and outstanding selectivity with a coefficient > 10 against common interferents (NH₃, CO, CH₄, H₂S, ethanol). Long-term testing confirmed stable performance over 30 days with < ± 4 % variation, while humidity tolerance experiments revealed retention of > 75 % response even at 80 % RH. Comparative benchmarking against reported MXene-based systems highlights the unique synergy of hierarchical porosity, defect-rich LaFeO₃, and MXene interfacial amplification in enabling ultra-sensitive, rapid, and stable room-temperature NO₂ sensing. This work not only demonstrates a promising candidate for real-world environmental monitoring and wearable applications but also establishes a versatile paradigm combining biotemplating, defect engineering, and 2D coupling for next-generation gas sensor development

Keywords

Biotemplating strategy, oxygen vacancy engineering, heterojunction amplification, porous perovskite oxide, environmental monitoring

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