Executive Summary : | The project aims to develop a potentiometric sensor for continuous monitoring of soil nitrate, a naturally occurring chemical form of nitrogen in ecosystems formed during nitrification and excessive fertilizer use. This nitrate contributes to the release of greenhouse gases from soil, which can negatively impact human health. The project will also fabricate chemiresistive type NO2 gas sensors and evaluate their performance with proto-type sensor devices. The unique surface chemical characteristics of 2D MXenes make them suitable candidates for chemical and biosensing applications. The physical and chemical properties of these materials can be effectively tuned through strategies such as reducing dimensions, intercalation, heterostructure, alloying, defect, and phase engineering. The proposed work focuses on tuning the properties of MXenes-metal nanoparticles (Pt, Pd, Au, Ag) and Ti3C2–TiO2 hybrid materials for soil nitrate and environmental NO2 gas monitoring applications. Ti3C2, derived from the MAX phase: Ti3AlC2, will be used as the MXene. Dimension tuning and intercalation tuning will be performed using top-down and bottom-up approaches. The structural and electrical quality of the graphene hybrid will be revealed through Raman spectroscopy, FESEM, TEM, and XRD. State-of-the-art Density Functional Theory (DFT) simulations will be performed using First Principles-based Codes to compute structural and electronic data. Electrocatalytic oxidation/reduction studies of the hybrid materials for N-ions present in different soil samples and NO2 gas sensing studies will be investigated using cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry, and dynamic studies in the presence of these analytes. |