Si:WO3 Sensors for Highly Selective Detection of Acetone for Easy Diagnosis of Diabetes by Breath Analysis

<!-- START_ABSTRACT --> <p> Acetone in the human breath is an important marker for noninvasive diagnosis of diabetes. Here, novel chemo-resistive detectors have been developed that allow rapid measurement of ultralow acetone concentrations (down to 20 ppb) with high signal-to-noise ratio in ideal (dry air) and realistic (up to 90% RH) conditions. The detector films consist of (highly sensitive) pure and Si-doped WO3 nanoparticles (10−13 nm in diameter) made in the gas phase and directly deposited onto interdigitated electrodes. Their sensing properties (selectivity, limit of detection, response, and recovery times) have been investigated as a function of operating temperature (325−500 °C), relative humidity (RH), and interfering analyte (ethanol or water vapor) concentration. It was found that Si-doping increases and stabilizes the acetone-selective e-WO3 phase while increasing its thermal stability and, thus, results in superior sensing performance with an optimum at about 10 mol % Si content. Furthermore, increasing the operation ... </p> <!-- END_ABSTRACT --> <!-- START_TEMPLATE --> <ul> <li> Source: </li> <li> Tags: </li> </ul> <!-- END_TEMPLATE -->