RapidNose

With the current lockdown and corona restrictions, lots of effort is put into bringing society back to normal. To work towards a corona-free world, preventive and iterative testing is one of the proposed solutions. However, for large-scale and rapid screening of people, not many solutions have been brought forward. Existing rapid tests are often invasive and are prone to give false negatives, giving an unfair sense of security.

Our solution comprises a breathalyzer – breath analyzer – that uses nanotechnology to detect COVID-19 biomarkers in human breath. The novelty herein is the use of multiple nanowires, that are extremely sensitive and thus able to pinpoint the gases of interest. By creating a device that is compact and has a simple interface, this breathalyzer could be suited for home care, festivals, large events and conference door policies. The modularity of our design enables extension towards other diseases such as (pre)diabetes or lung cancer, or even towards other markets such as hazardous gas detection or the car industry.