Sniffing Entrapped Humans with Sensor Arrays.

ABSTRACT: Earthquakes are lethal natural disasters frequently burying people alive under collapsed buildings. Tracking entrapped humans from their unique volatile chemical signature with hand-held devices would accelerate urban search and rescue (USaR) efforts. Here, a pilot study is presented with compact and orthogonal sensor arrays to detect the breath- and skin-emitted metabolic tracers acetone, ammonia, isoprene, CO₂, and relative humidity (RH), all together serving as sign of life. It consists of three nanostructured metal-oxide sensors (Si-doped WO₃, Si-doped MoO₃, and Ti-doped ZnO), each specifically tailored at the nanoscale for highly sensitive and selective tracer detection along with commercial CO₂ and humidity sensors. When tested on humans en

SUBMITTER: Guntner AT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5906756 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature