A new sensor for the assessment of personal exposure to volatile organic compounds

Abstract

To improve our understanding of indoor and outdoor personal exposures to common environmental toxicants released into the environment, new technologies that can monitor and quantify the toxicants anytime anywhere are needed. This paper presents a wearable sensor to provide such capabilities. The sensor can communicate with a common smart phone and provides accurate measurement of volatile organic compound concentration at a personal level in real time, providing environmental toxicants data every three minutes. The sensor has high specificity and sensitivity to aromatic, alkyl, and chlorinated hydrocarbons with a resolution as low as 4 parts per billion (ppb), with a detection range of 4 ppb to 1000 ppm (parts per million). The sensor's performance was validated using Gas Chromatography and Selected Ion Flow Tube - Mass Spectrometry reference methods in a variety of environments and activities with overall accuracy higher than 81% (r2 > 0.9). Field tests examined personal exposure in various scenarios including: indoor and outdoor environments, traffic exposure in different cities which vary from 0 to 50 ppmC (part-per-million carbon from hydrocarbons), and pollutants near the 2010 Deepwater Horizon's oil spill. These field tests not only validated the performance but also demonstrated unprecedented high temporal and spatial toxicant information provided by the new technology.

Aging effect of a molecularly imprinted polymer on a quartz tuning fork sensor for detection of volatile organic compounds

“…One example is a wearable wireless monitor developed by our group. The monitor is based on quartz crystal tuning forks (QTF) sensors for environmental VOCs [16][17][18]. Similar to QCM resonator, quartz tuning forks are mass sensitive resonators useful in biosensors [19,20].…”

Developing a Smartphone Software Package for Predicting Atmospheric Pollutant Concentrations at Mobile Locations

“…Alternative approaches include portable biomonitors and crowd source data sharing. Portable biomonitors have been developed which sample volatile organic carbons [21] and particulate matter [22] and send measurement readings to an attached smartphone in real time. Biomonitors have potential for greater accuracy and spatial and temporal resolution than the proposed environmental modeling approach.…”

Smartphones for sensing

“…For indoor and outdoor environmental monitoring, a wearable volatile organic compound (VOC) sensor has emerged [14]. The sensor has high sensitivity and selectivity and rapid response (Fig.…”