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Optimally increasing the catalytic activity of Co3O4‐based materials is crucial for promoting their practical applications for acetone detection; however, this still remains challenging. Herein, a strategy is proposed in this work to increase the catalytic activity of Co3O4 toward the oxidation of acetone through the synergistic effect of boron doping and chemical reduction, which can substantially improve the sensing performance for acetone detection. The characterization results confirm that the present strategy facilitates the formation of more oxygen vacancies and increases the content of Co2+ ions serving as active sites. As expected, the optimal sensor yields a higher response. To extend the practical application to the auxiliary diagnosis of diabetes through exhaled breath, the optimal sensors distinguished between acetone concentrations in the breath of healthy individuals and in the simulated breath of patients with diabetes. Detailed gas‐sensing measurements reveal that the enhanced acetone sensing performance is attributed to the increased catalytic activity of materials for oxidation of acetone by the Mars–van Krevelen, Langmuir–Hinshelwood, and Eley–Rideal mechanisms. This study provides new insights into the fabrication of high‐performance metal oxide‐based gas sensors by improving the catalytic activity of sensing materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reduced graphene oxide (rGO)-based materials are deemed as promising candidates for fabrication of room-temperature gas sensors, while a tougher challenge is to develop an effective strategy for improving gas responses. Here, a noble metal decoration strategy is developed to enhance NO2 responses of α-Fe2O3/SnO2–rGO hybrids. Noble metal decorated α-Fe2O3/SnO2–rGO hybrids were prepared by depositing noble metals onto α-Fe2O3/SnO2–rGO hybrids through reduction of noble metal ions by NaBH4. Most importantly, Pt modified α-Fe2O3/SnO2–rGO hybrids (designated as Pt-FSR) exhibit the highest response value of 21.3 toward 5 ppm NO2, which is much higher than that of α-Fe2O3/SnO2–rGO (8.8). Combined characterization studies indicate that the enhanced NO2 response of Pt-FSR is attributed to the narrow band gap of Pt-FSR, small particle size and excellent catalytic activity of Pt. The NO2 sensing mechanism is also investigated by FT-IR spectroscopy. The findings proposed in this work not only broaden the study of room-temperature gas sensors, but also provide suggestions for discovering the gas sensing mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]