KR20190055865A - Apparatus and method of measuring acetone of gas in oral cavity - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for measuring acetone concentration of breathing gas, which can measure and separate an acetone component from human breathing gas. To this end, the present invention provides the apparatus and the method for measuring the acetone concentration of the breathing gas, in which a set quantity of multi-component breathing gas flows along a flow path within the apparatus and passes through a gas separation column to be separated into a single component, and a gas sensor operated at a rear end of the column senses signals as time has passed and obtains an acetone gas sensing signal after set time. The gas is carried by a pump installed at the last end, and external air passed through a dehumidification material is used as a carriage gas. The gas sensing signal is processed into gas concentration according to conductivity change of metal oxide nano-material caused by absorption of gas molecules to display the gas concentration on the apparatus, a measurement result can be transmitted to other special apparatus, device and smart mobile application by a wired and wireless communication module mounted in the measurement apparatus, and personalized data is classified and stored at other special servers to perform a feedback and a follow-up measure.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to an acetone concentration measuring apparatus and a measuring method thereof,

More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for measuring acetone concentration in an exhalation, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for measuring acetone concentration in an exhalation, The present invention relates to an acetone concentration measuring apparatus and a measuring method in an exhalation apparatus capable of selectively separating the measurement result and displaying the measurement result on the apparatus and transmitting the measurement result to a separate apparatus.

In general, blood contains chemicals that reflect the physiological phenomena and metabolic states that occur in the human body. Of these, compounds of small molecular weight are released into the human respiratory gas through the lungs during the breathing process.

The respiratory gas of the human body is a result of metabolism, which is known as a physiological pathological basis reflecting the metabolism occurring in the human body.

As shown in FIG. 1, the acetone gas discharged from the lungs during exercise is associated with fat burning. In particular, as shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 2, only acetone, acetaacetate, beta hydroxybutyric acid, and acetone, which are byproducts during the fat burning, are discharged through the breathing gas.

On the other hand, the monitoring methods of obesity used in hospitals include blood analysis, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET), and metabolic measurement system.

In addition, as an apparatus for measuring or monitoring information of a body, an inborn, a portable healthcare apparatus, a respiratory exchange ratio (RER) measuring apparatus, and the like have been disclosed.

InBody is a non-invasive body composition measuring device that uses a basic principle in which current flows well in wet muscles and current does not flow well in low-moisture fats by passing a weak current through the body. The resistance value generated is measured to measure the body water, protein, mineral, and fat, which are components of the human body.

However, the above-mentioned InBody not only informs the body fat percentage and the muscle mass, but also has a disadvantage in that it can not provide personalized and effective exercise intensity and time information according to the diet (chitosanic / general).

In portable healthcare, mobile devices and mobile phone programs are configured to provide information such as energy consumption by sensing heart rate or using GPS to estimate the calories consumed at moving distance and speed.

Although these portable healthcare devices are used to increase the amount of physical activity and measure the amount of exercise, there is a disadvantage in that accurate information about energy metabolism can not be provided.

The RER (respiratory exchange ratio) measuring device is an indirect measuring method that calculates the energy consumption with the respiratory exchange rate of carbon dioxide and oxygen. It is easier and easier to use than the direct measuring method of measuring the heat production to calculate the energy consumption .

However, the validity and reliability of the measurement are inferior, and there is a disadvantage that the measurement cost, the effort of the subject, and the measurement of the majority of the group are limited.

On the other hand, there are Breezing shown in FIG. 3 and LEVL product shown in FIG. 4 as an example of the breath acetone measuring device.

First, Breezing (Breezing) calculates the consumption and production rate of oxygen and carbon dioxide through optical analysis, and calculates the calorie consumption in the body, so the user can check the calorie consumption.

However, there is a disadvantage in that the cartridge needs to be replaced after one use, and the cartridge price is USD $ 5 per unit, which is a constant maintenance cost.

Next, LEVL (Medamonitor LLC) analyzes acetone in respiratory gases based on nanosensors and provides an indication of fat metabolism.

However, there is a disadvantage in that a large amount of respiratory gas is required for measurement, low concentration acetone can not be detected, and it is not a portable instrument.

In addition, a number of studies have shown that aerobic biomarkers of diabetes are widely known as acetone. About 0.3 to 0.9 ppm of acetone is contained in normal respiration, and acetone concentration of about 1.8 ppm is excreted by diabetics. If the insulin secretion is not properly maintained in the body due to the insulin resistance characteristic of the diabetic patients, the metabolism is not smooth, and as an alternative energy for the insulin secretion, three kinds of ketone bodies are generated by decomposing the fat.

Conventional blood glucose meters have problems such as pain caused by invasive method, infection, inflammation, troublesome use, need of continuous disposable test paper, and expenditure on needle.

In addition, existing non-invasive blood glucose meters mainly use the skin measurement method. In this method, a method of applying pressure to the hand or a current is applied to measure the amount of light or current generated by blood glucose, There is a problem that the measurement error is large according to the conditions and the pain is caused by the current application.

The object of the present invention is to provide a method for diagnosing obesity and exercise by providing information related to fat burning and diabetes by measuring acetone emitted from the exhalation of a human body in real time and analyzing the result thereof. And to provide an apparatus and a method for measuring acetone concentration in the atmosphere which can predict signs of disease before a disease occurs.

In order to accomplish the above object, the present invention provides an apparatus for measuring the acetone concentration in an exhalation for real-time measurement of acetone, which is a biomarker related to fat burning and diabetes discharged from the human exhalation, , The acetone is selectively separated by passing through the exhalation unit, and the measured result of the separated acetone is displayed on the display device or can be transmitted to an external device connected by wire or wirelessly.

In order to accomplish the above object, the present invention provides a method for measuring acetone concentration in an exhalation for real-time measurement of acetone, which is a biomarker related to fat burning and diabetes discharged from the exhalation of a human body, Selectively passing acetone through the aerobic unit; Measuring the separated acetone; And displaying the measured result on a display device or transmitting to a wired or wirelessly connected external device.

The present invention as described above is to separate acetone selectively by passing through a gas separation column for real-time measurement of acetone, which is a biomarker related to fat burning and diabetes discharged from the exhalation of human body, There is an advantage that it can be transferred to the device.

1 is a view showing gas discharged from the exhalation of the human body.
2 is a diagram showing the mechanism of acetone component generation (ketone metabolism) during fat burning.
FIG. 3 is a view showing an example of use of bleeding.
4 is a view showing a LEVL product.
Figure 5 is Breezing, LEVL and a property comparison chart of the present invention.
6 is a configuration diagram showing a schematic configuration of the gas separation apparatus.
Figure 7 is a photograph of a gas sensor MEMS platform and a wafer scale ion beam sputtering metal oxide film.
8 is a configuration diagram showing a schematic configuration of the signal processing unit.
9 is a diagram illustrating a cloud service for collecting data and providing measurement result information.
10 is a graph showing the acetone measurement test results.
FIG. 11 is a graph showing the result of 1 ppm of acetone (Au doped WO 3). FIG.
12 is a graph showing an increase in the amount of acetone produced by the keto-genic diet.
Fig. 13 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of an apparatus for measuring acetone concentration in exhalation. Fig.
Fig. 14 is a view showing the dead volume of exhaled gas. Fig.

The present invention may be embodied in many other forms without departing from its spirit or essential characteristics. Accordingly, the embodiments of the present invention are to be considered in all respects as merely illustrative and not restrictive.

The terms first, second, etc. may be used to describe various components, but the components should not be limited by the terms.

The terms are used only for the purpose of distinguishing one component from another. For example, without departing from the scope of the present invention, the first component may be referred to as a second component, and similarly, the second component may also be referred to as a first component.

And / or < / RTI > includes any combination of a plurality of related listed items or any of a plurality of related listed items.

It is to be understood that when an element is referred to as being "connected" or "connected" to another element, it may be directly connected or connected to the other element, .

On the other hand, when an element is referred to as being "directly connected" or "directly connected" to another element, it should be understood that there are no other elements in between.

The terminology used in this application is used only to describe a specific embodiment and is not intended to limit the invention. The singular expressions include plural expressions unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.

In the present application, the terms "comprises", "having", "having", and the like are intended to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, components, Steps, operations, elements, components, or combinations of elements, numbers, steps, operations, components, parts, or combinations thereof.

Unless defined otherwise, all terms used herein, including technical or scientific terms, have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs.

Terms such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries are to be interpreted as having a meaning consistent with the contextual meaning of the related art and are to be interpreted as either ideal or overly formal in the sense of the present application Do not.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein like or corresponding elements are denoted by the same reference numerals, and a duplicate description thereof will be omitted.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1. Gas separation device (column, see FIG. 6)

Single or multiple gas separation devices are used to separate acetone (hereinafter referred to as "biomarker"), which is a biomarker in a multi-component breathing gas, into a single gas.

The biomarker separated from the first column (column 1) may be further separated in the second column (column 2) to improve the separation accuracy and selectivity of the mixed gas.

For miniaturization, it is also possible to apply ultra-small column through MEMS process.

2. Metal oxide nanogas sensor (see FIG. 7)

One or two dimensional materials such as nanoparticles, nanowires, nanofibers, nanotubes, and nanosheets can be used as the metal oxide. In particular, ultra fine quantum dot (QD) nanomaterials can be applied.

Examples of the metal oxide include ZnO, SnO 2, WO 3, In 2 O 3 and TiO 2. These metal oxides can be used singly or in combination of two or more kinds of metal oxides as a compound or a mixture, and transition metals such as Al, Cu, Pt, Precious metals may be added.

The gas sensor element is composed of a micro heater capable of heating the sensing material and a sensing electrode capable of obtaining an electrical signal by adsorption / desorption of gas molecules. In order to reduce power consumption and miniaturization, It can be produced in scale.

The metal oxide can be deposited by ultra-thin films of several to several tens of nanometers using ion beam sputtering.

3. Signal processing section (see Fig. 8)

If the digital circuit operated with the high frequency clock and the analog circuit are combined together, the accuracy of the analog measurement is lowered. Therefore, the L-C circuit may be additionally provided at the AVCC terminal to remove the noise from the ADC converter.

We develop a system that integrates Wheatstone bridges in a chip and test the biomarker detection ability according to each environment change.

Through the filter circuit, only the signal corresponding to the biomarker can be selected from the signals measured from the gases other than the biomarker.

By optimizing the circuit design to detect the signal value due to the exhalation gas input, it is possible to correct the fluctuation of the measured value according to the electric circuit for detecting the output signal and the measurement environment (for example, temperature or humidity) by the response of the expiration biomarker detection sensor A correction circuit can be designed.

4. Small devices

It is possible to manufacture the measuring device in the form of a small device so that the size of the gas separating device (column), the signal processing portion, the communication device, etc. can be minimized and carried.

In addition to being able to carry, it is possible to connect to a smart phone with wired / wireless connection and make data communication.

5. Data collection and provision of measurement result information (see FIG. 9)

"Personal Smart Exhalation Gas Diagnostic System" is equipped with ultra-sensitive ultra-small nano-sensor to analyze the biomarkers of health and disease in daily breathing of people and to integrate or integrate with smartphone to record, store and process individual data The screening results of data processed by statistical pattern recognition methods accumulated in the "Breath cloud" via the Internet foresee and judge the individual's health condition and signs of disease, ultimately providing feedback and follow-up on human health and well-being .

10 is a graph showing the results of the acetone measurement test, FIG. 11 is a graph showing the results of the acetone 1 ppm measurement (Au doped WO 3), and FIG. 12 Is a graph showing the increase in acetone production by the ketogenic diet.

6. End-expiratory collection method and apparatus (see Figs. 13 and 14)

In the measurement of acetone in the respiratory gas, acetone due to the metabolism of the human body is discharged at the end of the breath. Therefore, it is important to collect the gas at the end of the respiratory gas for meaningful measurement of fat burning and diabetes.

As shown in Fig. 14, the volume of the exhalation discharged by human breath is about 500 mL at a time, and about 150 mL, which is discharged in the early stage of the exhalation, is known as a gas irrelevant to the metabolism of the human body have.

 Accordingly, a method of collecting measurement samples by discharging the initial and middle exhalation gas in the respiratory gas to the outside, operating the check valve when the pressure sensor is installed in the exhalation sampling channel by the endoscopic sampling method, A method of measuring carbon dioxide contained in a person's exhalation gas and collecting a measurement sample by operating a check valve when carbon dioxide below a predetermined concentration corresponding to the end of the exhalation is detected; There is a method of using both the pressure sensor and the carbon dioxide detection sensor in combination.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments thereof with reference to the accompanying drawings, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that many other obvious modifications can be made therein without departing from the scope of the invention. Accordingly, the scope of the present invention should be interpreted by the appended claims to cover many such variations.

Claims (2)

As an apparatus for measuring acetone concentration in exhalation for real time measurement of acetone, which is a biomarker related to fat burning and diabetes discharged from the human exhalation,
An apparatus for measuring acetone concentration in a unit configured to selectively pass acetone through an exhalation passage to a gas separation column, to display the measured result of the separated acetone on a display device, or to transmit it to an external device connected by wire or wireless. As a method for measuring acetone concentration in the exhalation for real-time measurement of acetone, which is a biomarker related to fat burning and diabetes discharged from the human breath,
Selectively passing the acetone through a gas separation column;
Measuring the separated acetone; And
And displaying the measured result on a display device or transmitting to a wired or wirelessly connected external device.

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