COVID Breathalyzer UNT built a breathalyzer that detects COVID. A Frisco company just got FDA approval to put it to work. How does the device work, exactly? Verbeck explained that the technology mimics the carbon filter in your refrigerator. Carbon is very good at capturing organics and getting them out of your water, Verbeck said. So, think of it as exactly the same sort of process. Weve sort of a carbon substrate and it is a carbon substrate, but its got some extra things in it that turns to the chemistry that youre interested in looking at. So, when youre in a disease state like COVID, your respiratory cells die. They go apoptotic. Which is just a fancy word for cell death. When those cells die, Verbeck said, small organic compounds are released that are unique to COVID. Those organic molecules are the ones that were capturing, and re-releasing back into the instruments, Verbeck said. So, thats called pre-concentrating. So, we just take it, we concentrate onto the substrate like a carbon filter and then we evacuate it, heat it up and off comes the volatile organic compounds that were interested in identifying. So, it takes a small amount of air to detect these organic compounds. https://dentonrc.com/business/unt-built-a-breathalyzer-that-detects-covid-a-frisco-company-just-got-fda-approval-to/article_a569a515-777c-5ee9-8e40-8fa052e535e3.html Once upon a time...there was a FAIMS device. A device aimed at detecting diseases or anything else Scientists/Lab Rats wanted to chase after. Then along came Christopher Moreau and the rest of the FAIMS story is history. The End