Printed Iontophoretic‐Integrated Wearable Microfluidic Sweat‐Sensing Patch for On‐Demand Point‐Of‐Care Sweat Analysis

Abstract

In recent years, wearable epidermal sweat sensors have received extensive attention owing to their great potential to provide personalized information on the health status of individuals at the molecular level. For on‐demand medical analysis of sweat in sedentary conditions, a cost‐effective wearable integrated platform combining sweat stimulation, sampling, transport, and analysis is highly desirable. In this work, a printed iontophoretic system integrated into a microfluidic sensing platform, which combines sweat induction, collection, and real‐time analysis of sweat‐ions into a single patch for on‐demand sweat monitoring on human subjects in stationary conditions is reported. The incorporation of microfluidics features facilitates sweat sampling, collection, and guiding through capillary effect. The multisensing sensor array exhibits sensitivity close to Nernstian behavior for sodium, potassium, and pH. The correlation between the concentrations of ions measured with the sweat patch and with ion chromatography analysis demonstrates the applicability of the system for real‐time point‐of‐care monitoring of the health status of individuals. Furthermore, the sweat patch electronic interface with wireless transmission enables real‐time data monitoring and storage over a cloud platform. This printed iontophoretic‐integrated fluidic sweat patch provides a cost‐effective solution for the on‐demand analysis of sweat components for healthcare applications.

An epidermal wearable microfluidic patch for simultaneous sampling, storage, and analysis of biofluids with counterion monitoring

“…The characterization of the sensor array with the integrated fluidics was performed by recording the responses of the ion-selective sensors while maintaining a constant flow This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2022 of the artificial biofluids in the respective compartments. 36,63 Fig. 5a and b show the Ca 2+ ion sensor and Cl − ion sensor response, respectively, and their corresponding calibration plots are shown in Fig.…”

“…22,27 Although most epidermal sweat sensors exploit sweat generation through prolonged exercise, the iontophoresis process has been established for on-demand sweat induction, especially for infants, sedentary individuals, and elders. [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] Thus, devotion to developing the sweat-based sensors and exploration of in situ analysis of different sweat analytes and their correlation shows great promise for future non-invasive clinical diagnostics.…”

Wearable Near-Field Communication Sensors for Healthcare: Materials, Fabrication and Application

“…As the demand for portable, lightweight, and low-cost flexible and wearable electronics continues to grow, significant research attention is needed to address future challenges in the construction of next-generation electronic devices to achieve the necessary technological advances in performance characteristics and a wide range of potential applications. With the continuous innovation of materials and the continuous optimization of NFC/RFID structures, more and more novel designs and various applications of wearable NFC/RFID sensor technology have been reported [ 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. The emergence of IoT has strengthened the connection between things and people and things.…”

“…At present, NFC sensors are integrated in most smart phones and smart bracelets, so they have great development prospects and wide development space in the wearable field. Integrating NFC technology with sensing units that have the ability to detect physical and chemical signals in a single wearable sensor allows for different kinds of health detection [ 43 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 ].…”

Laser-Induced Graphene-Based Wearable Epidermal Ion-Selective Sensors for Noninvasive Multiplexed Sweat Analysis

“…The following supporting information can be downloaded at: , Figure S1: LED bulb lighted by LIG, Figure S2: pH-, Na + -, and K + -sensing performance under normal and bent states, Figure S3: pH-, Na + -, and K + -sensing performance tested on the custom-developed wearable multiplexed sensing system, Table S1: The patterning of 2 × 2 cm squares on PI substrate, Table S2: Comparison of sensing performances, Video S1: On-body real-time testing process. References [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 ] are cited in the supplementary materials.…”