Accelerated kinetics for room temperature carbon monoxide sensing enabled by silver chloride-modified protonated polyaniline/graphene oxide

Reliable room temperature carbon monoxide (CO) detection remains a key challenge constrain existing gas sensor technologies. Polyaniline (PANI)-based chemiresistors show promise but exhibit deficiencies including slow response/recovery and limited sensitivity. This work develops a silver chloride-functionalized protonated PANI integrated with graphene oxide (AgCl@PA-PANI/GO) nanocomposite sensor to address these limitations. The synergistic combination of PA-PANI, GO, and AgCl nanoparticles creates a tailored architecture to enable rapid and sensitive CO chemiresistive transduction at room temperature. Fabrication of flexible sensors was followed by materials characterization verifying successful composite synthesis. Gas sensing assessments demonstrated remarkable performance improvements including 50/39 s response/recovery times and 19.5% sensitivity at 130 ppm CO along with stability over multiple cycles. Comparative analysis verified that incorporating AgCl with PA-PANI/GO amplified the sensitivity by 4X and reduced response/recovery times by over 35% compared to unmodified PA-PANI/GO. This establishes a new materials-by-design approach to overcome existing limitations through rational nanocomposite engineering.