Miniaturized retractable thin-film sensor for wearable multifunctional respiratory monitoring

Chengyu Li; Zijie Xu; Shuxing Xu; Tingyu Wang; Siyu Zhou; Zhuoran Sun; Zhong Lin Wang; Wei Tang

doi:10.1007/s12274-023-5420-1

Miniaturized retractable thin-film sensor for wearable multifunctional respiratory monitoring

Nano Res. 2023 Feb 8:1-9. doi: 10.1007/s12274-023-5420-1. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Chengyu Li^#^{1

2}, Zijie Xu^#^{1

2}, Shuxing Xu^#^{1

3}, Tingyu Wang^{1

2}, Siyu Zhou⁴, Zhuoran Sun⁴, Zhong Lin Wang^{1

5}, Wei Tang^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 101400 China.
² School of Nanoscience and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049 China.
³ Center on Nanoenergy Research, School of Physical Science and Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004 China.
⁴ Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, 100191 China.
⁵ Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332 USA.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

As extremely important physiological indicators, respiratory signals can often reflect or predict the depth and urgency of various diseases. However, designing a wearable respiratory monitoring system with convenience, excellent durability, and high precision is still an urgent challenge. Here, we designed an easy-fabricate, lightweight, and badge reel-like retractable self-powered sensor (RSPS) with high precision, sensitivity, and durability for continuous detection of important indicators such as respiratory rate, apnea, and respiratory ventilation. By using three groups of interdigital electrode structures with phase differences, combined with flexible printed circuit boards (FPCBs) processing technology, a miniature rotating thin-film triboelectric nanogenerator (RTF-TENG) was developed. Based on discrete sensing technology, the RSPS has a sensing resolution of 0.13 mm, sensitivity of 7 P·mm^-1, and durability more than 1 million stretching cycles, with low hysteresis and excellent anti-environmental interference ability. Additionally, to demonstrate its wearability, real-time, and convenience of respiratory monitoring, a multifunctional wearable respiratory monitoring system (MWRMS) was designed. The MWRMS demonstrated in this study is expected to provide a new and practical strategy and technology for daily human respiratory monitoring and clinical diagnosis.

Electronic supplementary material: Supplementary material (additional figures and movies, including the production process of respiratory monitoring straps, the mechanical analysis of RSPS, RTF-TENG versus vector TENG sensors, the simulation studies of TE-TENG and FT-TENG, the additional characterization of RTF-TENG, the tensile and robustness tests of RSPS, the characterizations of the MWRMS during different sleeping positions, detailed circuit schematic of the MWRMS, the displacements and phase relations of RSPS, MWRMS for multifunctional respiratory monitoring) is available in the online version of this article at 10.1007/s12274-023-5420-1.

Keywords: discrete and vector; respiratory monitoring; self-powered; thin-film sensors; triboelectric nanogenerator.