Abstract
In this paper, effect of catalytic configuration on the sensing properties of $SnO_2$ nanoparticle gas sensitive thick film was investigated. Two types of catalytic configuration, mono and binary, were made on the $SnO_2$ nanoparticle. In case of mono catalytic system, $3 wt\%$ Pd or Pt catalyst was doped onto the $SnO_2$ nanoparticle, respectively. In case of binary catalytic system, Pd and Pt was doped simultaneously with concentration ratio of 1:2 to 2:1 onto the $SnO_2$ nanoparticle. After doping, gas sensitive thick film was printed on alumina substrate and heat-treated at 450 to $600^{\circ}C$. Gas sensing properties was evaluated using 500 to 10,000 ppm $CH_4$ gas. As a result, gas sensitive thick film with binary catalytic system showed unstable phenomena that the gas sensitivity was changed according to aging time. In contrary, the mono catalytic system showed relatively stable phenomena despite of aging time. Especially, gas sensitive thick film doped with $3 wt\%$ Pt catalyst and heat-treated at $500^{\circ}C$ showed good sensing properties such as 0.57 of $R_{3500}/R_{1000}$ and very small variation within $3.5\%$ after aging for 5 hours, and response time was very short less than 20 seconds.