A gas sensor array for the selective detection of cancer related volatile organic compounds*

In recent years, there has been growing interest in utilizing gas sensors for an enhanced perception of the surrounding environment in various domains. Gas sensors find widespread applications, from automating industrial processes, operating household appliances, automobiles, and robots, monitoring environmental pollution, and so on. Among the diverse types of gas sensors, the semiconducting metal oxides (SMOX) based sensors stands out due to its ability to respond rapidly to the environment by changing its electrical resistance in response to an analyte and to make the detection device cost effective. Notably, recent efforts are oriented toward employing SMOX gas sensors in the realm of medical diagnosis. This endeavor is grounded on the understanding that the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in exhaled breath may bear information about the health condition of an individual. Human breath contains a multitude of VOCs, spanning concentrations from parts per million (ppm) to trillion (ppt), thereby posing a significant challenge in precisely detecting select VOCs that convey crucial information about a specific medical condition. We have addressed this challenge by developing a new nanostructured material and engineering it to be sensitive to low concentration VOCs. In this presentation, we showcase the performance of a four-sensor array developed using this material in detecting VOC biomarkers for cancer detection.