A wearable exhaling-oxygen-sensing mask based on piezoelectric/gas-sensing coupling effect for real-time monitoring and uploading lung disease information

Abstract

Comprehensive analysis of respiratory gases may provide noninvasive health monitoring of lung diseases, such as COVID-19 pneumonia. Here, a self-powered wearable mask has been fabricated for real-time monitoring and uploading exhaling oxygen information. Tetrapod ZnO (T-ZnO) nanostructures are hybridized with polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) that adhere to flexible fabric substrate on a mask. The piezoelectric effect of T-ZnO/PVDF is coupled with the gas sensing properties. The sensing unit can convert breath energy into piezoelectric signal without any external power supply, and the outputting piezoelectric voltage increases with increasing oxygen concentration, acting as the sensing signal. The sensing unit integrated with data processing module and wireless Bluetooth module can transmit the exhaling oxygen information to the mobile device, realizing real-time monitoring the oxygenation capacity of the lungs. This self-powered wearable approach can promote the lung diagnosis outside of clinical settings.

Sensing–transducing coupled piezoelectric textiles for self-powered humidity detection and wearable biomonitoring

“…On the other hand, by conjugating the piezoelectric polymers (PVDF and its co-polymers) with a gas-sensitive polymer, an all-polymer-based sensing-transducing coupling configuration was established, which confers the flexibility and feasibility in a variety of biomonitoring scenarios. Nevertheless, the piezoelectric-coupled chemical sensors based on fluoropolymer like PVDF ( d 33 ∼ 29 pC N −1 ) suffer from weak output signal, low sensitivity, and poor detection limitation (∼100 ppm), 29–31 which cannot discriminate a wide range of trace-level (<0.1 ppm) toxic hazardous gases in the atmosphere. In addition, the high mechanical loss, poor temperature stability and easy-to-aging characteristics of piezoelectric fluoropolymers challenges the achievement of low frequency, discrete, random distributed environmental mechanical energy harvesting and autonomous chemical detection.…”

A self-powered sound-driven humidity sensor for wearable intelligent dehydration monitoring system

“…The piezoelectric output severs as both the power source and sensing data. In our previous work, we have proposed wearable intelligent breath detecting system basing on the self-powered piezoelectric (or triboelectric) gas sensors, and the sensors are driven by the breathing air flow [22,23]. However, the motion or breathing flow can hardly keep stable during sports, and the existing self-powered gas sensors are not suitable for fabricating wearable intelligent dehydration monitoring system.…”