ABSTRACT
Telemedicine provides an attractive vision for tele-monitoring human health conditions and, thus, offers the opportunity for timely preventing chronic disease. A key limitation of promoting telemedicine in clinic application is the lack of a noninvasive med-tech and effective monitoring platform, which should be wearable and capable of high-performance tele-monitoring of health risk. Here we proposed a volatolomics-based telemedicine for continuously and noninvasively assessing human health status through continuously tracking the variation of volatile markers derived from human breath or skin. Particularly, a nanosensor-based flexible electronic was specifically designed to serve as a powerful platform for implementing the proposed cost-effective healthcare. An all-flexible and highly packed makeup (all functional units were integrated in a 2*2*0.19 cm3 plate) enables an electronic, compact configuration and the capability of resisting negative impact derived from customers' daily movement. Notably, the nanosensor-based electronic demonstrates high specificity, quick response rate (t90% = 4.5 s), and desirable low detection limit (down to 0.117 ppm) in continuous tele-monitoring chronic-disease-related volatile marker (e.g., acetone). Assisted by the power saved light fidelity (Li-Fi) communicating technology, a clinic proof on the specifically designed electronic for noninvasively and uninterrupted assessing potential health risk (e.g., diabetics) is successfully implemented, with the accuracy of around 81%. A further increase in the accuracy of prewarning is predicted by excluding the impact of individual differences such as the gender, age, and smoking status of the customer. These promising pilot results indicate a bright future for the tailor-made nanosensing-device-supported volatolomics-based telemedicine in preventing chronic diseases and increasing patients' survival rate.
Subject(s)
Telemedicine , Electronics , Humans , TechnologyABSTRACT
During the detection of industrial toxic gases, such as triethylamine (TEA), poor selectivity and negative humidity impact are still challenging issues. A frequently reported strategy is to employ molecular sieves or metal-organic framework (MOF) membranes so that interference derived from surrounding gases or water vapor can be blocked. Nevertheless, the decline in the response signal was also observed after coating these membranes. Herein, an alternative strategy that is based on a hydrophobic, TEA adsorption-selective p-n conjunction core-shell heterostructure is proposed and is speculated to simultaneously enhance selectivity, sensitivity, and humidity resistance. To verify the practicability of the proposed strategy, a thickness-tunable nitrogen-doped carbon (N-C) shell-coated α-Fe2O3 nano-olive (N-C@α-Fe2O3 NO)-based core-shell heterostructure that is obtained via a unique all-vapor-phase processing method is selected as the research example. After forming the core-shell heterostructure, a relatively hydrophobic and TEA adsorption-selective N-C@α-Fe2O3 NO surface was experimentally confirmed. Particularly, a chemiresistive sensor that comprises N-C@α-Fe2O3 NOs exhibits satisfactory selectivity and response magnitude to TEA when compared with the sensor using α-Fe2O3 NOs. The detection limit can even reduce to be 400 ppb at 250 °C. Furthermore, the sensor based on N-C@α-Fe2O3 NOs shows desirable humidity resistance within the relative humidity (RH) range of 30-90%. For practical usage, a sensing prototype based on the N-C@α-Fe2O3 NO probe is fabricated, and its satisfactory sensing performance further confirms the potential for future applications in industrial organic amine detection. These promising results show a bright future in enhancing the humidity resistance and selectivity as well as sensitivity of chemiresistive sensors by simply designing a hydrophobic and target gas adsorption (e.g., TEA) preferred p-n junction core-shell heterostructure.
