High Sensitive Breath Sensor Based on Nanostructured K2W7O22 for Detection of Type 1 Diabetes

Acetone existing in human breath is an effective biomarker of diabetes, which can be used for the early diagnosis and daily monitoring the health status of diabetes (in particular, type 1 diabetes). Comparing to other conventional methods for diabetes diagnosis and monitoring based on analyzing blood glucose level, breath analysis of acetone is a method with merits, such as non-invasive, accurate, convenient, and inexpensive. A novel nanostructured K₂W₇O₂₂ was recently developed and tested on its feasibility for acetone detection. The results show that K₂W₇O₂₂ can effectively detect a trace amount of acetone at room temperature. The lowest detection limit ~2.0 ppm with a fast response time of 12 s is achieved. Further improvement of sensing performance with detection limit down to 25 ppb of acetone can be achieved through optimizing the material properties of K₂W₇O₂₂ and modifying the design of device circuit to realize weak signal detection. The excellent acetone response is studied due to the unique properties of K₂W₇O₂₂, ferroelectric and semiconducting, which result in the effective interaction and strong charge transfer between acetone and K₂W₇O₂₂. This paper can improve the understanding of the new material and its sensing mechanism and thus give ideas for further increasing the sensitivity for acetone detection, eventually resulting in an advanced material capable of analyzing acetone in exhaled breath for disease diagnosis and monitoring purpose.