I am doing sensing of acetone and ethanol vapors using transition metall decorated graphic carbon nitride and i got n type behaviour of TM embedded gCN towards acetone and ethanol. So i want to know that whether these VOCs are oxidising or reducing in nature?
I'd say that most organic compounds (containing C & H) are reducing, because their fate is oxydation into CO2 and H2O in the presence of oxygen. But acetone, for example, can be reduced by diverse organic reactions.
Whether these substances will act as an oxidizing or reducing agent, can be simply calculated by the Nernst equation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nernst_equation#Relation_to_the_chemical_equilibrium). For such simple compounds, enthalpies and entropies are well tabulated and therefore you have the Gibbs free energy available for e.g. the isopropanol/acetone or ethanol/acetaldehyde/acetic acid redox processes. Insert them into the General Nernst equation together with the data for the TM you want to treat with it and you will know where the voyage will be heading for.
There will be deviations in the absolute values due to the surface energy of your particles, but the general trends should usually stay the same.
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