Fabrication of Tungsten Oxide Nanowalls through HFCVD for Improved Electrochemical Detection of Methylamine

In this study, well-defined tungsten oxide (WO₃) nanowall (NW) thin films were synthesized via a controlled hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) technique and applied for electrochemical detection of methylamine toxic substances. Herein, for the thin-film growth by HFCVD, the temperature of tungsten (W) wire was held constant at ~1450 °C and gasification was performed by heating of W wire using varied substrate temperatures ranging from 350 °C to 450 °C. At an optimized growth temperature of 400 °C, well-defined and extremely dense WO₃ nanowall-like structures were developed on a Si substrate. Structural, crystallographic, and compositional characterizations confirmed that the deposited WO₃ thin films possessed monoclinic crystal structures of high crystal quality. For electrochemical sensing applications, WO₃ NW thin film was used as an electrode, and cyclic voltammetry (CV) and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) were measured with a wide concentration range of 20 μM~1 mM of methylamine. The fabricated electrochemical sensor achieved a sensitivity of ~183.65 μA mM⁻¹ cm⁻², a limit of detection (LOD) of ~20 μM and a quick response time of 10 s. Thus, the fabricated electrochemical sensor exhibited promising detection of methylamine with considerable stability and reproducibility.