Highly Sensitive Room-Temperature Sensor Based on Nanostructured K(2)W(7)O(22) for Application in the Non-Invasive Diagnosis of Diabetes

Diabetes is one of the most rapidly-growing chronic diseases in the world. Acetone, a volatile organic compound in exhaled breath, shows a positive correlation with blood glucose and has proven to be a biomarker for type-1 diabetes. Measuring the level of acetone in exhaled breath can provide a non-invasive, low risk of infection, low cost, and convenient way to monitor the health condition of diabetics. There has been continuous demand for the improvement of this non-invasive, sensitive sensor system to provide a fast and real-time electronic readout of blood glucose levels. A novel nanostructured K(2)W(7)O(22) has been recently used to test acetone with concentration from 0 parts-per-million (ppm) to 50 ppm at room temperature. The results revealed that a K(2)W(7)O(22) sensor shows a sensitive response to acetone, but the detection limit is not ideal due to the limitations of the detection system of the device. In this paper, we report a K(2)W(7)O(22) sensor with an improved sensitivity and detection limit by using an optimized circuit to minimize the electronic noise and increase the signal to noise ratio for the purpose of weak signal detection while the concentration of acetone is very low.