Investigations On A Dielectric Barrier Discharge Optical Emission Spectrometric System For The Determination Of Acetone In Human Breath

Acetone,as a representative volatile organic compound,has earned lots of concern in recent years because of its important role in the diagnosis of diabetes.Liver consumes fat deposits which are metabolized into acetone and other ketone bodies as an additional energy source in the absence of glycogen stores.The acetone produced travels through the blood and excreted from human body through lungs or urine.Recent research showed a positive correlation between breath acetone and blood glucose level,which will provide a possibility for the alternative diagnostic approach for diabetes by the determination of acetone in human breath.Dielectric barrier discharge(DBD),which makes a high dielectric material(quartz,ceramic,glass,etc.)inserted between the two electrodes,can generate a stable and homogeneous gas discharge,when a high-frequency AC voltage is applied between the two electrodes.As a normal low-temperature micro-plasma,DBD has many unique advantages,e.g.,low power consumption,simple configuration and easy to carry,which facilitate the miniaturization of analytical instruments.Recently,more and more attentions have been focused on the miniaturization of optical emission spectrometric(OES)system with DBD as a novel excitation source.A low temperature micro-plasma generated in a planar dielectric barrier discharge(DBD)was used as a radiation source for the excitation and determination of acetone.This system is used to measure the acetone in human breath in order to implement for diabetic patients without intervention,the condition of no damage to the test with helium as carrier gas,the most sensitive line 519 nm of CO as the analysis line.While liquid acetone was evaporated by heated tungsten coil and then introduced into the DBD micro-plasma by a helium flow for performing optical emission and detection,the emission spectra were measured with a QE65000 CCD spectrometer.With a sampling volume of 7 ?l,a linear range of 40?1600 mg/1 was obtained along with a detection limit of 6.3 mg/l(3?,n=9)and a precision of 5.7%RSD(800 mg/l,n=7).The present system was successfully applied in the determination of breath acetone in diabetic patients.