Purdue, NIST working on breathalyzers for medical diagnostics
January 21, 2011
- · Overcame Basic roadblock in developing breath-analysis technology.
- · Enhanced method of detecting “BIOMARKERS” in a person’s respiration.
- · The great news:
o This approach can detect the biomarkers in theparts per billion to parts per million range.
o A novel idea of this much caliber hasn’t been introduced in the last 30 years in this technology.
- · How does this technology work?
o works by detecting changes in electrical resistance or conductance as gases pass over sensors built on top of "microhotplates," tiny heating devices on electronic chips. Detecting biomarkers provides a record of a patient's health profile, indicating the possible presence of cancer and other diseases.
o The gases exhaled by the person has capabilities to alter the electrical resistance or conductance as they pass over the sensors.
o Theses sensors are built on “microhotplates”( tiny heating devices on electronic chips).
§ What does this technology provide us with?
· This technology provides us a record of a patient's health profile, indicating the possible presence of cancer and other diseases.
- · What’s the trick?
o The researchers used a template made of micron-size polymer particles and coated them with far smaller metal oxide nanoparticles. Using nanoparticle-coated microparticles instead of a flat surface allows researchers to increase the porosity of the sensor films, increasing the "active sensing surface area" to improve sensitivity.
- · Creation of the sensor.
o A droplet of the nanoparticle-coated polymer micro particles was deposited on each microhotplate, which are about 100 microns square and contain electrodes shaped like meshing fingers.
o The droplet dries and then the electrodes are heated up, burning off the polymer and leaving a porous metal-oxide film, creating a sensor.
- How powerful is the sensor?
- Gases passing over the device permeate the film and change its electrical properties depending on the particular biomarkers contained in the gas.
· Source purdue university site.
