Recent Advances in Functional Bacterial Cellulose for Wearable Physical Sensing Applications

Abstract

The development of novel physical sensors mainly depends on the exploitation of sensing materials and the growth of sensing technologies. However, the major challenges for next-generation physical sensing materials include wearable flexibility, miniaturization, biocompatibility, and environmentally friendly, which is committed to the exploration and utilization of eco-friendly materials for pursuing sustainable development. [9] Recently, various natural biomasses including cellulose, chitosan, and silk are promising in the fabrication of sensing materials for wearable devices. [10,11] Cellulose, the most abundant renewable biopolymer on the earth, is produced by plants and some microorganisms, which is extensively used in papermaking, food packaging, textile, and medical care. [12] Among them, bacterial cellulose (BC), with the same chemical structure as plant cellulose, is a kind of pure cellulose bio-synthesized by some certain microorganisms like the Acetobacter xylinum. [13] As a low-cost green material, BC can act as a substrate combined with active materials, which have been widely used in sensor and energy storage related areas. [14] The main advantages of BC as a substrate are renewability, biodegradability, biocompatibility, and possession of shape flexibility, mechanical strength, large specific surface area, and ultrafine fiber. [15,16] In addition, the porous network structure is conducive to the infiltration and combination of active materials on BC to form functional sensing materials, broadening the application of BC, and providing a new view for the development of flexible sensors. On the one hand, the orderly stacked crystalline regions formed by abundant hydrogen bonds endow BC excellent mechanical properties. [17] On the other hand, strong intramolecular and intermolecular hydrogen bonds make the network structure of BC quite tight and difficult to dissolve. [18] Therefore, there is limited development for the exploitation of BC-based functional sensing materials, and available fabrication strategies is needed to design and develop BC-based sensing materials.In fact, the development of cellulose-based sensors is attracting wide and increasing attention, and cellulose has been adopted to the construction of physical, bio, and chemical sensors individually or in combination with other materials. [4,19] A few review papers summarizing the progress on sensors deriving from cellulose have been published. [10,[19][20][21] Owing to the excellent properties of BC and the promising prospects in sensors, this review summarizes the recent advances in construction strategies and fabrication methods of BC-based Flexible physical sensors have attracted increasing attention due to their wide applications in human motion monitoring, human-machine interfaces, smart robots, and personalized medicine in recent years. As a natural biomass, bacterial cellulose (BC) plays an important role in the development of new generation sensors due to the low cost, renewability and biodegradability, 3D porous structure, mechan...

Self-Assembled Biohybrid: A Living Material To Bridge the Functions between Electronics and Multilevel Biological Modules/Systems

“…Encompassing many unique advantages of biological processes such as low energy consumption, mild conditions, and minimized environmental impact, this strategy offered the potential to transform how the electronics were designed and fabricated to ensure the sustainability of the modern electronic industry. Besides, the BC is known to be widely applied as a substrate for the fabrication of bendable/stretchable supercapacitors and/or sensors because of its unique properties such as high tensile strength, high water retention capability, biodegradability, biocompatibility, large specific surface area, and ultrafine fiber. ,− Hence, the intrinsically integrated BC/B-r-GO synthesized using this approach offers an excellent opportunity for advancing the synthesis of these bendable/stretchable devices by streamlining the physical or chemical modification processes that are usually inevitable in existing technologies to connect BC with electrodes . Besides, the PV-4 provides an additional possibility to further enhance the performance of these bendable/stretchable devices through doping the biohybrid with nanomaterials.…”

“…46,52−54 Hence, the intrinsically integrated BC/B-r-GO synthesized using this approach offers an excellent opportunity for advancing the synthesis of these bendable/stretchable devices by streamlining the physical or chemical modification processes that are usually inevitable in existing technologies to connect BC with electrodes. 53 Besides, the PV-4 provides an additional possibility to further enhance the performance of these bendable/stretchable devices through doping the biohybrid with nanomaterials. For example, the flexible/stretchable supercapacitors based on 3D laser-induced graphene foams decorated with mesoporous ZnP nanosheets have demonstrated superior capacitance to many reported studies.…”

Advances in drug delivery applications of modified bacterial cellulose-based materials

“…Coating can keep the initial morphology of underlying materials without incurring damage. Organic polymers and inorganic materials are usually used as surface coating to protect BC from external corrosion (including strong oxidants, acids, and bases) (Huang et al, 2022). Xi et al have investigated the physical and chemical characteristics of poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) or polydopamine (PDA) as an innovative coating material for BC (Lai et al, 2019).…”

Multifunctional Bacterial Cellulose Nanofibers/Polypyrrole (PPy) Composite Films for Joule Heating and Electromagnetic Interference Shielding

“…Hydroxyl groups of BC can interact with the PPy through hydrogen bonding, improving the processability of PPy and the flexibility of BC@PPy composite films. In addition, it has excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability, which makes it valuable in the preparation of wearable devices . Therefore, it is worth exploring the multifunctional applications of the BC nanofiber and conducting polymer composites for Joule heating and EMI shielding.…”