Towards Flexible & Wearable Diabetes Monitoring: Printing of Metal Oxide Materials for Chemiresistive Gas Sensors

Chemiresistive gas sensors represent an increasingly cutting-edge technology with various applications, ranging from air quality monitoring to health monitoring. Among these applications, this technology is emerging for the early detection of diabetes, thanks to its fast and non-invasive analysis. This is feasible due to the correlation of diabetes with an increasing acetone concentration in the breath, particularly in the case of type 1 diabetes m ellitus. Aligned with this technology, our research involved the use of micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS)-based SMOX gas sensors for the specific detection of acetone in breath. By employing zinc oxide (ZnO), tin oxide - palladium doped (Sn02/Pd), tungsten oxide (W03), and titanium-indium-niobium oxide (STN) as sensing materials, deposited on MEMS substrates through screen printing, we achieved notable results. Our experiments demonstrated rapid response and recovery times (7 minutes and 9 minutes, respectively) across various concentrations of acetone (ranging from 0.5 to 50 ppm), with particularly promising performance observed in STN and Sn02/Pd-based sensors. These findings underscore the potential of MEMS-based chemiresistive gas sensors for acetone detection, offering an alternative to common invasive diagnostic tools. Future efforts may concentrate on optimizing sensor efficacy, exploring alternative sensing materials, and integrating these sensors into flexible electronics platforms, thereby increasing their adaptability for real-world applications.