Selective, Sensitive, and Fast Acetone Sensing Using Ternary Metal Chalcogenide PbSnSe ₂ Nanoflake at Room Temperature

Abstract In the pursuit of noninvasive and painless solutions for health monitoring and early detection of physiological disorders, breath analysis has become a valuable diagnostic tool in which acetone is recognized as a critical breath biomarker for diabetes and fat metabolism assessments. Therefore, an in‐depth exploration of gas sensing parameters for acetone detection utilizing PbSnSe 2 flake has been investigated. The pure crystals of PbSnSe 2 were subjected to mechanical exfoliation to attain the flakes of desired lateral size (∼5 µm). A single flake was transferred to the interdigitated electrodes to fabricate the Au/PbSnSe 2 /Au device and its current voltage characteristics were recorded at various concentrations of acetone at room temperature. A high response of ∼26.08%, ∼41.69%, ∼53.04%, and ∼62.73% was observed for acetone concentrations of 50, 100, 150, and 200 ppm, respectively. The dynamic response was recorded to detect response and recovery times to be 6.6 and 9.3 s, respectively. The selectivity with other reducing gases like ethanol, 2‐butanol, and 2‐butanone was recorded which showed higher percentage response for acetone illustrating the selective response. A very little deviation (∼2%) of the response which was measured for 30 days depicts high stability of the device.