Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea.
Lab Chip. 2017 Oct 25;17(21):3537-3557. doi: 10.1039/c7lc00810d.
Semiconductor gas sensors using metal oxides, carbon nanotubes, graphene-based materials, and metal chalcogenides have been reviewed from the viewpoint of the sensitive, selective, and reliable detection of exhaled biomarker gases, and perspectives/strategies to realize breath analysis on a chip for disease diagnosis are discussed based on the concurrent design of high-performance sensing materials and miniaturized pretreatment components. Carbon-based sensing materials that show relatively high responses to NO and NH at low or mildly raised temperatures can be applied to the diagnosis of asthma and renal disease. Halitosis can be diagnosed by employing sensing or additive materials such as CuO and Mo that have high chemical affinities for HS, while catalyst-loaded metal oxide nanostructure sensors or their arrays have been used to diagnose diabetes via the selective detection of acetone or by pattern recognition of sensor signals. For the ultimate miniaturization of a breath-analysis system into a tiny chip, preconditioning that includes preconcentration, dehumidification, and flow sensing needs to be either improved through the design of gas/moisture adsorbents or removed/simplified through the design of highly sensitive sensing materials that are less impervious to interference from humidity and temperature. Moreover, an abundant sensing library needs to be provided for the diagnosis of diseases (e.g. lung cancer) that are associated with multiple biomarker gases and for finding new methods to diagnose other diseases. For this aim, p-type oxide semiconductors with high catalytic activities, as well as combinatorial approaches, can be considered for the development of sensing materials that detect less-reactive large molecules, and high-throughput screening, respectively. Selectivity for a specific biomarker gas will simplify the system further. Breath analysis on a tiny chip using semiconductor chemiresistors with ultralow power consumption that is connected to the 'Internet of Things' will pave new roads for disease diagnosis and patient monitoring.
从敏感、选择性和可靠检测呼气生物标志物气体的角度综述了使用金属氧化物、碳纳米管、基于石墨烯的材料和金属硫属化物的半导体气体传感器，并讨论了基于高性能传感材料和小型化预处理组件的并行设计，实现芯片上呼吸分析用于疾病诊断的观点/策略。在低温或适度升温下对 NO 和 NH 表现出较高响应的碳基传感材料可应用于哮喘和肾病的诊断。通过采用对 HS 具有高化学亲和力的传感或添加剂材料（如 CuO 和 Mo），可以诊断口臭，而负载催化剂的金属氧化物纳米结构传感器或其阵列已用于通过选择性检测丙酮或通过传感器信号的模式识别来诊断糖尿病。为了将呼吸分析系统最终小型化为微型芯片，需要通过设计气体/湿气吸附剂来改进预条件处理（包括浓缩、除湿和流量感应），或者通过设计对湿度和温度干扰不太敏感的高灵敏度传感材料来去除/简化预条件处理。此外，需要为与多种生物标志物气体相关的疾病（例如肺癌）的诊断以及寻找诊断其他疾病的新方法提供丰富的传感库。为此，可以考虑使用具有高催化活性的 p 型氧化物半导体以及组合方法来开发用于检测反应性较小的大分子的传感材料和用于高通量筛选的传感材料。对特定生物标志物气体的选择性将进一步简化系统。使用与“物联网”连接的超低功耗半导体化学电阻器进行微小芯片上的呼吸分析，将为疾病诊断和患者监测开辟新的道路。
