The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Technologies, Novosibirsk State Technical University NETI has developed an experimental installation for testing gas sensors that can detect diseases by the composition of the human exhaled air.
According to Alexander Bannov, Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Candidate of Sciences (Engineering), the installation is already working and research is regularly carried out on it.
"The installation is working. We are currently debugging it to test new types of gas sensors. That is, we are mainly engaged in selecting proper modes, refining some components and cells. The installation works so far only at NSTU NETI, because it was created as part of a research project. If someone is interested in the development, we are ready to cooperate. The basic idea has not changed: we have a gas sensor that detects gases such as ammonia, nitrogen dioxide, hydrocarbons, and can be used at enterprises for industrial safety tasks and in biomedical applications to determine the early stages of diseases using the composition of exhaled air. Now we are trying to reduce the detectable concentrations to be closer to 1 ppm (parts per million, 1 ppm = 0.001%) and significantly below. Scientifically and practically speaking, it is no longer interesting to work with large concentrations. Now we are working with different carbon materials that respond well to the content of harmful gases in the air. We used to work with films, and now we are developing the work with "compacts" of various materials. There are many problems with the films in terms of the production methodology, including problems of reproducibility of separate samples. But the preparation of a compact (tablet) is always done quickly: it is a very simple and well-established methodology," Alexander Bannov said.
Currently, coal and chemical industries have issues with identifying the harmful gases released during production. They can lead to accidents as well as affect people's health. According to Alexander Bannov, similar developments are currently underway in the world, but no one else has ready-made devices yet.
In early October, NSTU NETI became one of the 46 Russian universities that received grants under the Priority 2030 program. Work on further improvement of the gas sensor testing facility will be continued as part of the strategic project "New Engineering Solutions and Artificial Intelligence for Biomedicine".