NSF Award
2226202
Modern medicine and health management highly demand novel noninvasive techniques for rapid disease detection and early screening. The development of low cost, portable and reliable devices for analyzing disease-related volatile organic compounds (VOCs), for example, acetone, the biomarker of diabetes, in human breath has been a both attractive and competitive frontier in medical diagnostics, therapy control, and health management. The great progress in the synthesis of advanced materials, especially nano-structured materials, and the invention of new manufacturing techniques provide an opportunity to design and fabricate advanced medical devices that can do noninvasive diagnosis, are inexpensive and portable, and are therefore suitable for use at home or clinics. Two-dimensional transition metal carbides/nitrides (MXene) are an emerging family of nanomaterials which hold great promise in enhancing the performance of electric devices in view of their multi-layered, porous structures, high surface-to-volume ratio, rich and tunable surface chemistry and excellent conductivity. 3D printing is a versatile technique which offers a simple, less material-wasting strategy for the rapid and straightforward prototyping of bespoke 3D architectures. The combination of sensing material, MXene nanocomposites and 3D printing may potentially lead to advanced, scalable, low-cost, and high-performance sensing devices for daily health monitoring and early disease screening. Along with the scientific contribution, the project will also promote undergraduate and graduate education through expanding material science curriculum in Engineering and creating undergraduate research positions targeting American Natives and female students, and benefit K-12 students via local non-profit organization, uCodeGirl and Nature program.<br/><br/>This project will develop an advanced breath acetone sensor constructed with nanocomposite of K2W7O22 (KWO) nanowires and layer structured Ti4C3 MXene nanosheets, in which KWO serves as the sensing material and MXene functions to not only enhance the sensor performance as the supporting material but also make the sensing material become 3D printable and accordingly enable the sensor device to gain a desired 3D architecture with an enhancement in the repeatability, flexibility and stability. The primary goal of the project is to deliver a novel breath analysis-based sensor device for daily diabetes health monitoring. The research will involve (1) the synthesis of 1D/2D KWO/Ti4C3 MXene nanocomposite sensing materials that demonstrate satisfactory sensitivity and selectivity in detecting breath acetone, (2) the development of a formulation of KWO/Ti4C3 nanocomposite ink for the fabrication of acetone sensors with controllable pattern and 3D architecture via direct ink writing (DIW), and (3) the formation of a prototype of breath acetone sensor that features high sensitivity, excellent selectivity, high signal to noise ratio, unprecedented signal reliability, room-temperature operation, scalable manufacturing, low cost and being portable. Success in this project will provide a guidance to the design and fabrication of functional nanomaterial-based gas sensors which utilize 3D architecture to boost sensor performance and use 3D printing technique to achieve mass production and reproducible fabrication of the sensor devices. The approach can be readily extended to other applications, such as sensors for pandemic prevention, affordable life-time medical devices for chronic diseases management, scaffold sensors for cancer biomarker detection, and air/water/food quality control for long-term health protection.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
