Tokai Denshi launches VolaTrap handheld breath VOC sampler

Tokai Denshi has launched VolaTrap, a handheld breath sampler that it describes as the first made in Japan, based on its own web survey as of August 2026. Orders opened on August 21, 2026. The device collects volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from exhaled breath.

According to the company, VolaTrap collects breath quantitatively, regardless of who operates it. The collection volume can be set in 10 steps from 0.5 L to 5.0 L to match a study protocol. It fills two sorbent tubes at the same time, giving two identical samples that can be used for reanalysis or shared with another institution. No operator training is needed. Because it uses standard sorbent tubes, the samples go straight into TD-GC-MS (thermal desorption gas chromatography-mass spectrometry). Delivery takes about two weeks from order.

The design moves sampling into the device. When analytical results do not reproduce, people tend to suspect the instrument or the method, but much of the variation is fixed when the sample is taken. Breath has many sources of it. The first part of a breath, from the airway dead space, differs in composition from the later alveolar part. The volume collected changes the absolute amount loaded on the tube. Exhalation speed changes how compounds break through the sorbent. Recent food, smoking and room air add more.

Of these, volume and flow can be fixed by the device, which is what operator-independent collection refers to. Method validation tests how far conditions can be varied before results change, but a variable whose range is unknown never enters that test. As long as sampling depends on the operator's hand, that range stays unmeasured.

Two tubes from one breath have practical value. One can be measured and the other kept to confirm an unexpected result without sampling again. The same sample can be measured at two laboratories, separating lab differences from sample differences. A tube can also be stored for methods that do not exist yet. Breath cannot be kept or recreated, so the second tube serves as the reference that would otherwise be missing.

Using standard tubes is a choice too. A dedicated collection medium could raise performance, but it would tie users to one consumable supplier, require new analyzers and break the link to past data. Standard tubes trade some performance for easier adoption and multiple sources of supply. Breath analysis has long been discussed for biomarker discovery, and inconsistent sampling has made results hard to compare.