Stretchable, Rehealable, Recyclable, and Reconfigurable Integrated Strain Sensor for Joint Motion and Respiration Monitoring

Chuanqian Shi; Zhanan Zou; Zepeng Lei; Pengcheng Zhu; Guohua Nie; Wei Zhang; Jianliang Xiao

doi:10.34133/2021/9846036

Stretchable, Rehealable, Recyclable, and Reconfigurable Integrated Strain Sensor for Joint Motion and Respiration Monitoring

Research (Wash D C). 2021 Jul 29:2021:9846036. doi: 10.34133/2021/9846036. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Chuanqian Shi^{1

2}, Zhanan Zou¹, Zepeng Lei³, Pengcheng Zhu^{1

4}, Guohua Nie², Wei Zhang³, Jianliang Xiao¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
² School of Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China.
³ Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China.

Abstract

Cutting-edge technologies of stretchable, skin-mountable, and wearable electronics have attracted tremendous attention recently due to their very wide applications and promising performances. One direction of particular interest is to investigate novel properties in stretchable electronics by exploring multifunctional materials. Here, we report an integrated strain sensing system that is highly stretchable, rehealable, fully recyclable, and reconfigurable. This system consists of dynamic covalent thermoset polyimine as the moldable substrate and encapsulation, eutectic liquid metal alloy as the strain sensing unit and interconnects, and off-the-shelf chip components for measuring and magnifying functions. The device can be attached on different parts of the human body for accurately monitoring joint motion and respiration. Such a strain sensing system provides a reliable, economical, and ecofriendly solution to wearable technologies, with wide applications in health care, prosthetics, robotics, and biomedical devices.