Recently, researchers in Hefei Institutes of Physical Science made progress in technology for detection of body fluids.

They developed a novel ultrasonic nebulization extraction proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (UNE-PTR-MS) method for rapid and sensitive detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) just in a drop of urine. This work has been published in Analytical Chemistry (DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.7b04563).

Anomalies in urinary VOCs are closely related to human metabolism disorders and give evidence of some human diseases.

However, the current technologies, especially the sample pretreatment technologies, are too slow to get the real concentration of VOCs in fresh urine. So, the researchers designed an ultrasonic nebulization extraction (UNE) system to realize rapid extraction of the VOCs from a drop of urine to gaseous VOCs.

And then these gaseous VOCs can be rapidly and sensitively detected with the homemade PTR-MS.

This method only cost ~μL sample, and can be done in several seconds with a detection limit of ~ng. It has an important potential application in detection of disease biomarkers in body fluid, and can also be used for rapid detection of VOCs in environmental water.

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Fund. The device and method used in this work has been authorized to obtain the invention patent from State Intellectual Property Office.

Link to the paper: Detection of Volatile Organic Compounds in a Drop of Urine by Ultrasonic Nebulization Extraction Proton Transfer Reaction Mass Spectrometry

 

Schematic diagram of UNE-PTR-MS for detection of urinary VOCs and the mass spectrum.
(Image by LI Tong and ZOU Xue)

Contact:

ZHOU Shu

Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (http://english.hf.cas.cn/)

Email: zhous@hfcas.ac.cn