LAUSR

Abstract Ethanol vapor monitoring technologies have received attention for guarding against dangerous accidents. However, existing ethanol sensors often have comparable sensing selectivity for many other gases, which interferes in their sensing ability. Furthermore, current sensors need to enhance their sensitivity over ethanol vapor with low concentrations. In this work, we developed amorphous ytterbium hexaboride (YbB6) alloy nanoparticles as novel sensing materials over ethanol vapor at room temperature. It showed a rapid (6 s/8s response/recovery time), stable, and selective response to ethanol vapor at 25 °C. Its detection limit was 10 ppb. Meanwhile, its response ratio of ethanol/methanol reached 20.8. We attribute the good sensing characteristics of the as-prepared YbB6 nanoparticles to the high specific surface area (167.8 m2 g−1) and catalytic activity of ethanol dehydration to form ethyl ether at 25 °C in air. In addition, it has a good anti-humidity ability in the RH range of 10%–90% due to the negligible impact of humidity on its permittivity at 100 kHz.