Roya Maboudian (Advisor)

Metal oxide semiconductors (MOX) are widely utilized in chemiresistive gas sensing owing to their exceptional stability and versatility. Integrating porosity into these materials is critical for enhancing performance, as it expands the surface area available for gas interaction. By providing a greater number of active sites, these porous structures improve overall sensitivity and facilitate rapid gas-surface exchanges, leading to optimized response and recovery times. In this study, we utilized an amphiphilic block copolymer as a template to engineer the porous structure of SnO2...

Hydrogen is increasingly central to clean‑energy and manufacturing sectors, yet its colorless and highly flammable nature demands fast, reliable, and selective detection technologies. This work presents a multiscale engineering approach to palladium‑based nanostructures designed to meet industrial requirements for speed, stability, and operational robustness. We demonstrate how structural control—from facet‑defined Pd nanocubes to truncated Pd crystals and mesoporous PdCu and PdCo alloys—directly governs hydrogen dissociation, diffusion pathways, and hydride formation behavior. Mesoporous...

Chemiresistive gas sensors based on semiconductor metal oxides, such as tin oxide (SnO₂), play a critical role in detecting toxic gases and monitoring pollution in industrial and environmental applications. Siloxanes, organic compounds that contain silicon and oxygen atoms and are widely used in personal care products, are commonly present in various environments. The presence of these compounds can significantly degrade sensor performance by modifying the oxide surface, altering its gas adsorption properties, and reducing both sensitivity and selectivity in gas sensing. To address this...