A novel approach to monitor ammonia in exhaled breath

Abstract

Clinical breath analysis has been recognized for centuries, to detect the diseased state in humans. The exhaled breath consists of volatile organic compounds (VOC) which reflect the health status of an individual. Among the various gas molecules present in breath, ammonia specifically indicates the presence of pathological conditions like renal failure, gastric ulcer, liver failure etc. and hence can be used in diagnosis. Such monitoring can be done using existing techniques like Gas chromatography which involve a difficult sampling process and incur high cost. In this work, a low-cost and a less complex prototype model was developed to detect the presence of ammonia in human breath. This non-invasive technique involves a semiconductor sensor which is sensitivity to ammonia, has been calibrated and used to detect the presence of ammonia from the collected breath samples. The output generated is then interfaced to PC and finally the samples are analyzed for diagnostic applications.