Colorimetric Sensor for Online Accurate Detection of Breath Acetone

Breath acetone (BrAce) is a validated biomarker of lipid oxidation and has been extensively studied for many applications, such as monitoring ketoacidosis in diabetes, guiding ketogenic diet, and measuring fat burning during exercise. Although many sensors have been reported for BrAce measurement, most of the contributions tested only synthetic or spiked breath samples, because of the complex components of human breath. Here, we show that online accurate detection of BrAce can be achieved using a colorimetric sensor. The high selectivity is enabled by the specific reaction between acetone and hydroxylamine sulfate, and the sensor has a high agreement with a reference instrument in ketosis monitoring. We anticipate that the colorimetric acetone sensor can be applied to various health-related applications.

Automated summary

Breath acetone (BrAce) is a validated biomarker of lipid oxidation and has been extensively studied for various applications, such as monitoring ketoacidosis in diabetes. While many sensors have been reported for BrAce measurement, most only tested synthetic or spiked breath samples. A colorimetric sensor has been shown to achieve online accurate detection of BrAce.