Highly sensitive and selective acetone sensor based on C-doped WO3 for potential diagnosis of diabetes mellitus

Acetone in the human breath is a crucial biomarker for the clinical diagnosis of diabetes in a noninvasive manner. Traditional methods of breath analysis have some major technical problems and limitations. Herein, C-doped WO3 materials are synthesized via a facile cotton fiber-templating route following by calcination. The phase and morphology of the resulting material were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectra and high resolution transmission electron microscopies (HRTEM). The as-fabricated sensors based on C-doped WO3 materials show fast response and recovery toward acetone gas down to 0.2 ppm with a well-defined relationship between the concentration and detection response at an operating temperature of 300 °C. Upon exposure to methanol, ethanol and NH3, only slight responses were observed at the same temperature, indicating an excellent selectivity. Furthermore, healthy persons (<0.9 ppm) and diabetic patients (>1.8 ppm) can be distinguished by an obvious gap in sensor response even at 95% relative humidity. The results suggest that the synthesized C-doped WO3 could not only be used as an effective acetone detecting material but offer a cost-effective alternative to more bulky systems for noninvasive diagnosis of diabetes.