Metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) gas sensors have the advantages of high sensitivity, short response-recovery time and long-term stability. However, the shortcoming of poor discriminability of homogeneous gases limits their applications in gas sensors. It is well-known that the MOS materials have similar gas sensing responses to homogeneous gases such as CO and H₂, so it is difficult for these gas sensors to distinguish the two gases. In this paper, simple sol–gel method was employed to obtain the ZnO–xNiO composites. Gas sensing performance results illustrated that the gas sensing properties of composites with x > 0.425 showed a p-type response to both CO and H₂, while the gas sensing properties of composites with x < 0.425 showed an n-type response to both CO and H₂. However, it was interesting that ZnO–0.425NiO showed a p-type response to CO but an discriminable response (n-type) to H₂, which indicated that modulating the p-type or n-type semiconductor concentration in p-n composites could be an effective method with which to improve the discriminability of this type of gas sensor regarding CO and H₂. The phenomenon of the special gas sensing behavior of ZnO–0.425NiO was explained based on the experimental observations and a range of characterization techniques, including XRD, HRTEM and XPS, in detail.

Because the behaviours of MgO and Al₂O₃ during slag formation of high basicity sinter are not clearly understood, the effects of MgO and Al₂O₃ on softening-melting properties are always arguable. In this paper, four kinds of sinter containing different MgO and Al₂O₃ content are investigated. Some observations are obtained. The mechanism of the influence of MgO and Al₂O₃ on softening properties of sinter are different. Al₂O₃ has priority over MgO to enter into slag phase and forms low-melting point phase while MgO remains unslagged state and mainly exists in wustite as FeO–MgO solid solution. When sinter melts, the viscosity of the slag generated from sinter containing high MgO and Al₂O₃ content is low, which could result in low pressure drop. As MgO and Al₂O₃ content increase, the main minerals of residual slag change from 2CaO•SiO₂ to merwinte and melilite. The changes of the minerals in slag phase can well explain the trend of softening-melting characteristic temperatures.