Fluctuation-Enhanced Sensing of Bacterium Odors

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that commercial Taguchi sensors, using fluctuation-enhanced sensing and power density spectrum analysis, can effectively detect and identify bacteria such as E. coli and Bacillus subtilis based on their odors.

Contribution

It introduces a simple method using fluctuation-enhanced sensing with commercial sensors for bacterial detection and identification based on odor analysis.

Findings

Sensors effectively distinguish bacteria via resistance fluctuation spectra.

Fluctuation-enhanced modes improve detection capabilities.

Power density spectrum analysis suffices for bacterial identification.

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to explore the possibility to detect and identify bacteria by sensing their odor via fluctuation-enhanced sensing with commercial Taguchi sensors. The fluctuations of the electrical resistance during exposure to different bacterial odors, Escherichia coli and anthrax-surrogate Bacillus subtilis, have been measured and analyzed. In the present study, the simplest method, the measurement and analysis of power density spectra was used. The sensors were run in the normal heated and the sampling-and-hold working modes, respectively. The results indicate that Taguchi sensors used in these fluctuation-enhanced modes are effective tools of bacterium detection and identification even when they are utilizing only the power density spectrum of the stochastic sensor signal.