Detection of trace volatile organic compounds in spiked breath samples: a leap towards breathomics

Abstract

Breathomics is the future of non invasive point-of-care devices. The field of breathomics can be split into isolation of disease specific volatile organic compounds and their detection. In the present work, an array of five polymer with nanomaterial additive-modified Quartz Tuning Fork (QTF)-based sensors has been utilized to detect samples of human breath spiked with ∼0.5 ppm of known volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which are bio-markers for certain diseases, namely, acetone, acetaldehyde, octane, decane, ethanol, methanol, styrene, propylbenzene, cyclohexanone, butanediol, and iso-propyl alcohol. Polystyrene was used as the base polymer and it was functionalized with 4 different fillers namely, Silver nanoparticles-reduced graphene oxide composite, titanium dioxide nanoparticles, Zinc Ferrite nanoparticles-reduced graphene oxide composite and cellulose acetate. Each of these fillers enhanced the selectivity of a particular sensor towards certain VOC compared to prestene polystyrene modified sensor. Their interaction with the VOCs in changing the mechanical properties of polymer giving rise to change in resonant frequency of QTF, is used as sensor response for detection. The interaction of functinolized polymers with VOCs was analyzed by FTIR and UV- vis spectroscopy. The Collective sensor response of five sensors is used to identify VOCs using ensemble classifier with 92.8% accuracy of prediction. The accuracy of prediction improved to 96% when isopropyl alcohol, ethanol and methanol were considered as one class.

The State of the Art on Graphene-Based Sensors for Human Health Monitoring through Breath Biomarkers

“…Outstanding levels of accuracy (ranging between 92.8 and 96%). Considering the achieved results, there is no doubt about the total suitability of graphene-based sensors for the identification of biomarkers in breath [150].…”

Breath Sensor Technology for the Use in Mechanical Lung Ventilation Equipment for Monitoring Critically Ill Patients

“…Each sensor responds to a range of VOCs, which allows the sensing and analysis of their pattern from a mixture of compounds. The isolation of disease-specific VOCs and their detection via breathomics and novel sensing materials highlights the clinical applicability of exhaled breath monitoring [ 7 , 8 ].…”