21.5 A portable micro gas chromatography system for volatile compounds detection with 15ppb of sensitivity

Existing non-invasive lung cancer diagnostic equipment has difficulty in detecting early stage lung cancer as abnormal tissue is smaller than 0.5cm in size. According to studies showing that volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from human breath gas can provide biomarkers for human disease, especially for lung cancer, a non-invasive method was developed to measure the exhaled air from cancer patients using chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). However, traditional GC-MS equipment is very expensive and requires specialists to operate. In this research we demonstrate a portable micro gas chromatography (μGC) system to overcome the limitations of conventional methods and realize small chips for big data.