Glucose monitoring system using nanopellets

Abstract

The combination of the fields of software engineering, gadgets, and science has stood out among the most revolutionary future innovations. Health issues have been the focus of various engaging and explanatory studies. One such health‐related dilemma is diabetes. Diabetes at its serious stage results in impaired vision. Increase in the glucose level is a critical parameter that could result in hyperglycaemia, hypoglycaemia, massive heart attack, strokes, and aneurysms. Monitoring the glucose level in blood is one of the control measures for diabetes in the affected population. A glucose monitoring framework interminably measures and screens the glucose level in blood. A novel framework for measuring the glucose level is proposed in this study. This study employs nanopellets that evaluate the glucose level. When the glucose level increases or decreases, it is continuously recorded and displayed using a microcontroller (mixed signal processor (MSP) 430). The data are then sent to the physician through global system for mobile communication. The typical blood glucose level of human being ranges from 70 to 110 mg/dl. When the insulin level builds up to certain point, hyperglycaemia occurs. When decreases, hypoglycaemia occurs. Hyperglycaemia leads to cataracts, oedema, hypertension, polyuria, and polydipsia. Hypoglycaemia causes perplexity, energy, insensateness, coma, and death.

1 Introduction

According to the 2013 survey of the International Diabetes Federation, so far 380 million people have been affected by diabetes worldwide, and the number may reach 592 million by 2035 (55% increase). Estimating mortality due to diabetes has been challenging because most people die of related vascular complications such as cardiovascular diseases or renal failure. Approximately 5.1 million diabetes – related deaths occurred globally in 2013 in the age range of 20−79 years; this figure amounted to one death every 6 s, a 11% increase over 2011. The proposed blood glucose monitoring is similar to self‐monitoring of blood glucose, but is performed for a patient with diabetes by a health care provider or a caregiver. Early diagnosis, on‐time treatment, and continuing management help in avoiding complications such as circulatory problems, kidney failure, heart disease, stroke, and vision loss [1, 2, 3, 4].

Wang et al. [5] developed a highly sensitive and stable glucose sensor predicated on the synergetic effect of multi‐wall carbon nanotubes and zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles. The first working model presented by Cuauhtemoc Medina Rimoldi was an amperometric blood glucometer. Later, an amperometric glucose biosensor fabricated using aligned ZnO nanorod grown on an indium tin oxide substrate as a biosensor was shown to exhibit excellent analytical performance over a wide linear range along with good selectivity. Subsequently, an advanced unique disposable saliva nano‐biosensor which is precise, low cost, and used in a perpetual glucose monitoring system was developed in the late 2009 [6, 7, 8]. This sensor was designed to quantify values from 0.1 to 20 mg/dl of glucose in the saliva, which is sufficient for diabetes diagnosis and health surveillance. A demonstration was performed using an ultraviolet spectrophotometer with excellent clinical accuracy. Aini et al. [9] developed a novel electrochemical glucose biosensor to determine the tenacity of glucose by depositing an ionic liquid, ZnO nanoparticles, and an eggshell membrane on a modified glassy carbon electrode. The morphological characteristics of the microstructure eggshell membranes and chitosan were observed using scanning electron microscopy.

A self‐assembly using the combination of single walled carbon nanotubes, gold nanoparticles, and chitosan were deposited on a screen‐printed cathode in the making of a salivary glucose sensor that allowed patients to control and screen their health conditions. Lately, a nano‐based glucose estimation framework has been developed by enhancing the surface range of gold nanoparticles. The detection capability of the cathode properties, e.g. reactant, surface cooperation, and ionic transport is enhanced in the nanoscale sensors. Efficient self‐collection process is one of the fundamental techniques in manufacturing biosensors to improve monitoring and obtain specific effect, reaction time, and identification cut‐off [10, 11, 12].

Transistor–transistor logic and partial recurrence adjustments, e.g. pulse‐width modulation, together with a microcontroller‐based checking framework, have received much attention for examining the glucose level in a spit. This type of enhanced electronic system opens up a new field of application. The microcontroller precision can be enhanced using a high‐accuracy analogue‐to‐digital converter (ADC's), and programming delay can be overcome using a better microcontroller. Therefore, our proposed method utilises the MSP430 microcontroller, which has an inbuilt ADC, and the delay is reduced, resulting in better performance [13, 14, 15].

This paper proposes a glucose‐checking framework utilising nanopellets. Nanopellet is a semiconductor that uses a strontium titanate (SrTiO₃) ferroelectric material. The electrical parameters such as conductivity, resistivity, voltage, energy, and power of a nanopellet with and without glucose both in normal and distilled water are investigated. These electrical parameters serve as input to the microcontroller. With reference to the given values of the electrical parameters, the microcontroller determines the level of glucose. The result is displayed on a liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor and a message is sent to the physician.

1.1 Objective

The goal of our work is to identify the parameters needed for glucose‐level monitoring and to determine the vacillations in glucose level that might go unnoted if not monitored. A biochip can be utilised; however, it is expensive, and its manufacturing requires a special laboratory. To solve this problem, nanopellets are developed and tested. This option provided a less costly framework for observing the glucose level.

1.2 Motivation

The basic motivation of this paper is to develop specialised and clinical parts for glucose sensors and to thoroughly investigate current specialised equipment. This work focuses on nanopellets that are used to measure the glucose level. Regular glucose checkup will help the diabetic patient in maintaining the insulin levels in the body acquiring the required insulin treatment and in performing appropriate metabolic control. The framework also helps in distinguishing hypo and hyperglycaemia cases. Technical advancements have improved the clinical criteria for scientific frameworks using the latest complete laboratory automation systems. In the past 30 years, various endeavours were made to create glucose sensors. Nanopellets can be used as glucose identifying materials. The choice of these materials depends on thorough knowledge of the criteria that incorporate flexibility, rapidity, and precision with the capacity to adapt to multi‐parameter examination. In view of the recent experimental and innovative advances, nanopellets are important tools in gathering scientific data in all areas of human medical examination from prescription to military application. Different glucose‐level checking models [16] are available in the business sector.

1.3 Technical background

Usually, blood glucose‐level testing involves an invasive process by taking blood from a patient. Medical practitioners used a skin prick and hand‐held blood testing apparatus and relied on the outcome for maintaining the insulin levels. A long time is required for testing the sugar level of the blood. In our work, the goal is to minimise the limitations of the previous process and develop a scaled‐down model using minimal elements (microarrays) on a strong substrate. This process results in a few tests only. Here, nanopellet is used to measure the blood glucose level. The blood glucose level is immediately displayed on a computer screen. When the glucose level is anomalous, a message will be sent to a doctor through a global system for mobile communication (GSM) module.

2 Proposed solution

The proposed strategy is investigated using water with and without glucose. The general outline is shown in Fig. 1. The conductivity of the fabricated nanopellet is determined initially using water without glucose. Later, the glucose level is increased by including glucose (0.5–5 mg). The conductivity of the pellet is then measured. The measured values indicate if the nanopellet is successful in recording the changes in glucose level in the water. The observed parameters are the voltage, current, power, and energy level of the water with and without glucose. This test can be extended to determine the glucose level in human blood.

Fig. 1.

Overall block diagram

2.1 Pellet preparation

For the pellet preparation, SrTiO₃ is used because it is insoluble in water, has a melting point of 2080°C, and has a thermal conductivity of ∼12 WK⁻¹ m⁻¹. This material has a cubic perovskite structure that increases conductivity. The nanopellets are composed of a semiconductor material prepared using SrTiO₃ ferroelectric material and used as electrodes. SrTiO₃ is used in the pellet preparation because it has a perovskite structure at room temperature [17, 18]. It is used in many applications in microelectronics owing to its high charge storage capacity, good insulating properties, excellent optical transparency in the visible region, and chemical stability. The nanopellet has other chemical components such as Sr nitrate titanium (IV) butoxide, ethanol, isopropyl alcohol ( C₃ H₈ O; 99.5%, Sigma‐Aldrich), and glacial acetic acid (99.8%; Merck, Mumbai, India). A 30 ml of acetic acid solution is poured into a beaker, and a magnetic pellet that acts as a stirrer with a rotating speed of 320 rpm is used. After a few seconds, 15 ml of titanium (IV) butoxide and 30 ml of ethanol are added into the beaker. Then, 5 g of Sr nitrate is added into the beaker, and the rotating speed of the magnetic pellet is increased to 440 rpm. Chemical reaction occurs when the beaker is heated up and the beaker is then placed in an oven at 103°C. When the chemicals have dried, they are ground, and a hydraulic pellet pressing machine is used to form the pellets into tablet‐like forms. Then, the pellets are placed in a furnace at 1000°C for hardening.

3 Results and discussion

The nanopellets are used for monitoring the level of glucose in the solution. The schematic representation of the equipment used is shown in Fig. 2. The results of the conductivity calculation are listed in Table 1. The results of the resistivity calculation of the glucose level in normal and distilled water show a decrease in resistivity with the increase in the voltage level, which indicates an increase in the glucose level. The readings are listed in Table 2. The results show that the conductivity of the solution increases with the increase in the glucose level.

Fig. 2.

Flow diagram of the hardware implementation

Table 1.

Conductivity of the nanopellets without and with glucose

Glucose level	Voltage, V	Current, A	Resistance, Ω	Energy, mJ/mol	Power, W/kg
without glucose	2	0.22	10.52	2	2.3144
0.5 g	2.4	0.23	10.43	24	0.552
1 g	2.6	0.26	10.41	31.2	0.676
1.5 g	2.7	0.26	10.35	40.5	0.702
2 g	2.9	0.28	10.34	58	0.812
2.5 g	3	0.29	10.30	75	0.87
3.5 g	3.2	0.31	10.29	102.4	0.992
5 g	3.4	0.32	10.27	176.8	1.088

Table 2.

Resistivity calculation without and with glucose

Normal water glucose				Distilled water glucose
Glucose level, g	Voltage, V	Current, mA	Resistance, Ω	Glucose level	Voltage, V	Current, mA	Resistance, Ω
—	5	15	0.075	—	12	42	0.504
	10	18	0.18		15	56	0.84
0.5	5	26	16	0.5 g	12	28	0.504
1	5	24	18	1 g	12	30	0.48
1.5	5	22	20	1.5 g	12	33	0.468
2	5	21	21	2 g	12	36	0.432
2.5	5	20	22	2.5 g	12	39	0.396
3.5	5	18	24	3.5 g	12	40	0.36
5	5	16	26	5 g	12	42	0.336
0.5	10	20	13	0.5 g	15	46	0.84
1	10	18	14	1 g	15	47	0.81
1.5	10	18	16	1.5 g	15	48	0.795
2	10	17	17	2 g	15	50	0.75
2.5	10	16	18	2.5 g	15	53	0.72
3.5	10	14	18	3.5 g	15	54	0.705
5	10	13	20	5 g	15	56	0.2

3.1 Microcontroller

The Texas Instruments CC430 family of ultra‐low‐power microcontroller system‐on‐chip (SoC) with integrated radio‐frequency (RF) transceiver cores consists of several devices featuring different sets of peripherals targeted for a wide range of applications. The architecture, combined with five low‐power modes, is optimised to achieve extended battery life in portable measurement applications. The device features the powerful MSP430 16 bit reduced instruction set computing central processing unit, 16 bit registers, and constant generators that contribute to maximum code efficiency. The CC430 family provides a tight integration between the microcontroller core, its peripherals, software, and the RF transceiver, making these true SoC solutions easy to use as well as improving performance.

The CC430F61xx series are microcontroller SoC configurations that combine the excellent performance of the state‐of‐the‐art CC1101 sub‐1 GHz RF transceiver. The features of the MSP430 Central Processing Unit Extended Version 2 include the following:

1. Up to 32 kB of in‐system programmable flash memory.

2. 4 kB of random access memory.

3. 12 bit ADC with eight external inputs, in addition to the internal temperature and battery sensors on the CC430F613x devices and comparator.

4. Universal serial communication interfaces.

5. 128‐piece advanced encryption standard security accelerator.

6. A hardware multiplier.

7. Direct memory access

8. a real‐time clock module with alarm capabilities

9. An LCD driver, and up to 44 I/O pins.

The analogue input of the pellet from the circuit is fed as input to the controller. Then, it is digitalised using the inbuilt ADC controller. The interface programming of the LCD with the GSM using the microcontroller is effectively executed. The glucose‐level indication is sent to the physician through the GSM and is also displayed on the LCD. The pin details of CC430F613x with LCD Interface are given in Table 3.

Table 3.

LCD interface with CC430F613x

LCD pin no.	Pin function	Port no.	CC430F613x pin no.
1	Gnd (0 V)
2	V cc (+5 V)
3	display contrast
4	LCD register select	port 1/bit 0	16
5	LCD read/write select	port 1/bit 1	15
6	LCD enable	port 1/bit 2	14
7	data line 0	NC
8	data line 1	NC
9	data line 2	NC
10	data line 3	NC
11	data line 4	port 1/bit 4	12
12	data line 5	port 1/bit 5	3
13	data line 6	port 1/bit 6	2
14	data line 7	port 1/bit 7	1
15	LCD backlight – anode	port 1/bit 3	13
16	LCD backlight – cathode

NC‐No connection

3.2 Conductivity measurement

A Wheatstone bridge is used to calculate the resistance of the nanopellets. Fig. 3 shows the circuit diagram for the same. The resistivity of the pellet is calculated using the following equation:

$$R_x=\frac{\left(R_1\times R_3\right)}{R_2}$$ (1)

where R ₁ is the variable resistance, R ₂ and R ₃ are the fixed resistances, and R_x is the unknown resistance of the pellet.

Fig. 3.

Circuit diagram for the conductivity measurement

Distilled water is taken in a 50 ml beaker. Two ammeters (A1 and A2), a voltmeter, and a power supply (0–30 V) are connected for measuring necessary values. The negative terminal of the power supply is connected to the negative terminal of ammeter A1 and the positive terminal of ammeter A1 is connected to the beaker. The positive terminal of the ammeter A2 is connected to the beaker containing the water. The voltmeter is connected to the pellet. One end of the pellet is connected to the positive terminal of ammeter A1, and the other side is connected to the negative terminal of ammeter A2. The conductivity of water without glucose is measured, and the parameters are ascertained. At this instant, glucose is added to the water in increments of 0.5 g/s. Every time the parameters (reading) are recorded. The result shows that the conductivity increases with the addition of glucose to the water, whereas the temperature decreases.

4 Hardware implementation

The glucose monitoring model was investigated. Its equipment setup includes nanopellets, MSP430 microcontroller, LCD display, GSM module, and power supply. The equipment setup is shown in Fig. 4. The conductivity of the pellet is measured using parameters such as voltage and current. The measured values are recorded. The voltage quality is maintained and controlled by the inbuilt ADC in the microcontroller. The framework is modified to display the glucose level in the water using the LCD monitor. At any instant, the ‘decrease/increase’ in glucose level is displayed in the LCD monitor as low/high. The same maybe transmitted to the physician in case of a patient monitoring system through GSM.

Fig. 4.

Hardware setup

5 Conclusion

The primary focus of this work is to identify the glucose level in ordinary and distilled water. Identifying the blood glucose level is important because it helps in anticipating different diabetes‐related illnesses. The proposed framework successfully identified the glucose level in water. Future works should extend the same technique of recognising the glucose level in the blood. This technique can also be extended to identify other parameters, e.g. weight and oxygen content. The nanopellets can additionally be used as observation models to identify different pathologies in human beings.