A novel optical chemical sensor based AuNR-MTPP and dyes for lung cancer biomarkers in exhaled breath identification

In this work, the gold nanorod (AuNR) was prepared by the seed mediated growth method and characterized by SEM and UV-vis spectrum. MTPP-AuNR nanocomposites were synthetized by solution co-blending method and used to fabricate an optical chemical sensor for identification of lung cancer biomarkers in exhaled breath (VOCs: decane, undecane, hexanal, heptanal, benzene and 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene). Series of color difference maps of six VOCs were obtained, and principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were used for further data analysis. The results demonstrated that VOCs could be identified rapidly and accurately by the novel sensor due to the modest sensitivity and selectivity of sensitive materials for VOCs. This noninvasive, low cost and fast method could be used for wide-spread screening for lung cancer in the high-risk groups.