Tattoo‐Based Wearable Electrochemical Devices: A Review

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the recent advances in the field of skin‐worn tattoo‐based wearable electrochemical devices, including electrolyte and metabolite sensors, biofuel cells and batteries. Temporary tattoos are attractive platforms for fabricating skin‐worn devices. Body‐compliant wearable electrochemical devices on temporary tattoos couple highly favorable substrate‐skin elasticity with an attractive electrochemical performance. For example, tattoo‐based “skin‐like” sensors can be used for real‐time non‐invasive analysis of key electrolytes and metabolites, leading to remarkable sensing capabilities. Continued progress has been made also towards developing skin‐worn flexible energy harvesting and storage devices to power wearable health monitors and other devices. Key requirements and challenges that confront researchers in this exciting area of skin‐worn electrochemical devices are discussed.

Wearable Flexible Sensors: A Review

“…These sensors were also used to monitor glucose electrochemically from tears of a person by embedding the wireless sensor with a contact lens. Tattoo based sensors have been widely developed [132] and used for different applications like as a potentiometric [133] and amperometric [134] sensor based systems. These devices have significant applications for skin worn silver (Ag) -zinc (Zn) alkaline batteries [135] and monitoring of change in pH [136] and ions like sodium and ammonium [137,138].…”

Solid-Contact Reference Electrode for Ion-Selective Sensors

“…This low cost flexible platform for monitoring multiple ions sensing could be beneficial to measure and control certain human physiological conditions, like salt intake, physical stress and disease diagnosis [1,2].…”

Polymeric Materials for Printed-Based Electroanalytical (Bio)Applications

“…To deal with these, the printed electroanalytical plaftorms can be ad-hoc manufactured by using various supports for printing, i.e., plastic, ceramic, paper, removable tattoo, etc. [8][9][10][11]. Plenty of materials are adopted to make the devices sensitive and specific, i.e., metal nanoparticles, carbonaceous nano-and micro-materials, bioelements (enzyme, nucleic acids, antibodies, etc.…”