Trace level VOC gas detection of developed CNT based micropreconcentrator for breath analysis

In this paper, we report the fabrication and experiment results of carbon nanotube (CNT) based micropreconcentrator. In our micropreconcentrator, the CNT are applied as the adsorption structures to trap and detect trace level volatile organic compounds (VOC) gas for human breath analysis. Our CNT based micropreconcentrator is designed and its performance is investigated quantitatively by simulation study. As a result of quantitative simulation study, we could confirm that the number of adsorbed particles of CNT based models is at least 4 times to 23 times more than that of our previous Si based models for the same structure areas. We have also fabricated CNT based micropreconcentrator and evaluated it by gas chromatography with 5 ppb toluene-d₈ (C₇H₈-d₈) VOC gas sample. As a result, we could successfully confirm the ppb level VOC gas detection.