Press-N-Go On-Skin Sensor with High Interfacial Toughness for Continuous Healthcare Monitoring

Abstract

On-skin electronic sensors are demanded for healthcare monitoring such as the continuous recording of biopotential and motion signals from patients. However, the mechanical mismatches and poor interface adhesion at the skin/sensor interfaces always cause high interfacial impedance and artifacts, frequent interfacial failure, and unexpected depletion of the device, which significantly limit the performance of the sensors. We here develop an on-skin sensor based on a conductive pressure-sensitive tape, which is assembled from supramolecular dual-cross-linked hydrogel composites. Both covalent and noncovalent cross-links in the hydrogel networks could harvest high flexibility, pressure-sensitive adhesion, and high interfacial toughness altogether, enabling a convenient “Press-N-Go” application of the sensor on human skin without additional pre/post-treatment on the skin or the senor. The high conformability and low resistivity of the tape can sustainably lower the interfacial impedance and thus improve signal quality in various measurement conditions. Our design provides a feasible path to develop interface-toughened on-skin electronics, which is desired in dynamic human–machine interfaces.

Superstrong Ionogel Enabled by Coacervation-Induced Nanofibril Assembly for Sustainable Moisture Energy Harvesting

“…First, the mechanical properties of CNF-PIL complex films were examined by tensile stress–strain tests, as shown in Figure a. Incorporating nanomaterials with specific assembly structures to form nanocomposites could integrate the advantages of all components to improve the performance. , Given that CNF and PIL act as the hard fibrils and soft polymer chains in the composites, respectively, the introduction of PIL can improve the toughness of the composite films to a certain extent. Nevertheless, the addition of a small proportion of PIL simultaneously improves the tensile strength of the films, and both strength and toughness reach the maximum when the CNF:PIL mass ratio is 4:1 (Figure b).…”

Hydrophobic TPU/CNTs-ILs Ionogel as a Reliable Multimode and Flexible Wearable Sensor for Motion Monitoring, Information Transfer, and Underwater Sensing

“…Flexible skin-like sensors showing a wide range of promising applications in wearable devices, − soft robots, − health-monitoring devices, − and human–machine interfaces − have become a research hotspot in recent years. Among them, resistive flexible strain sensors have received widespread attention due to their flexibility similar to that of human skin and their advantages of simple structure, low cost, and flexibility.…”

Partially insoluble regenerated silk fibroin film induced by UV irradiation for electronic skins

“…With the progress of material sciences and electronics, significant efforts have been dedicated to flexible sensors because of their broad applications in health monitoring [1], exercise tracking [2], and wearable communication [3,4]. Electronic skin (e-skin) is a type of electronic sensor based on a flexible and stretchable thin film, which can mimic the functionalities of human or animal skin [5][6][7]. An e-skin usually consists of a thin polymeric film and surfaceattached or matrix-embedded conductive materials.…”