Near-infrared tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy-based determination of carbon dioxide in human exhaled breath.

A spectroscopic detection system for the accurate monitoring of carbon dioxide (CO2) in exhaled breath was realized by tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) in conjunction with a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) and a multipass cell with an effective optical path-length of 20 m. The VCSEL diode emitting light with an output power of 0.8 mW, covered the strong absorption line of CO2 at 6330.82 cm-1 by drive-current tuning. The minimum detectable concentration of 0.769‰ for CO2 detection was obtained, and a measurement precision of approximately 100 ppm was achieved with an integration time of 168 s. Real-time online measurements were carried out for the detection of CO2 expirograms from healthy subjects, different concentrations were obtained in dead space and alveolar gas. The exhaled CO2 increased significantly with the increasing physical activity, reaches its maximal value at the beginning of respiratory compensation and then decreased slightly until maximal exercise. The developed measurement system has a great potential to be applied in practice for the detection of pulmonary diseases associated with CO2 retention.