Au-decorated BN nanotube as a breathalyzer for potential medical applications

Respiratory viral infections such as coronavirus (COVID-19) will cause a great mortality, especially in people who underly lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary and asthma. Very recently, the COVID-19 outbreak has exposed the lack of quick approaches for screening people who may have risen risk of pathogen contact. One proposed non-invasive potential approach to recognize the viral infection is analysis of exhaled gases. It has been indicated that the nitric oxide is one of most important biomarkers which might be emanated by respiratory epithelial cells. Using density functional theory calculations, here, we introduced a novel Au-decorated BN nanotube-based breathalyzer for probable recognition of NO gas released from the respiratory epithelial cells in the presence of interfering CO2 and H2O gases. This breathalyzer benefits from different advantages including high sensitivity (sensing response = 101.5), high selectivity, portability, short recovery time (1.8 μs at 298 K), and low cost. •We introduced Au@BNNT as a novel breathalyzer for recognition of NO gas.•Au@BNNT detects the exhaled NO gas biomarker in the presence of CO2 and H2O gases.•Au@BNNT benefits from high sensitivity, high selectivity, short recovery time, and portability.•Sensing response or recovery time for Au@BNNT is 101.5 or 1.8 μs as NO gas sensor.